Environmental DNA and citizen science
Exploration and safeguarding of local coastal diversity through respectful and non-invasive inventory procedures
Conserving biodiversity is the key to a healthy, sustainable life for future generations. In this project a monitoring tool based on the DNA present in the environment was developed and tested. This is helping to build a database of species without disturbing wildlife to create an inventory of European biodiversity. The present research is necessary to prevent potential suffering or extinction of biota (animals and others) in the future.
This project aims to bring together people of different ages from different activity sectors for environmental actions in a network of citizen scientists and to involve authorities, managers, stakeholders and general public in creating the inventory of biota. The team believes that current academic knowledge should be publicly shared with citizens to support conscious and respectful treatment of local biodiversity.
Team
Universidad de Oviedo: three senior staff researchers, two post-docs and three Ph.D students
Partners
University of Perpignan in France and Klaipeda University in Lithuania
Project timeframe
Started January 2014
Project Location
Oviedo, SPAIN
Contact
http://www.uniovi.es/
https://oma.uniovi.es/proyectos/bioinvasiones (in Spanish)
Eva Garcia-Vazques egv[at]uniovi.es (project PI)
rectorado[at]uniovi.es (academic authority)