Targeting Terrestrial Vertebrates With eDNA : Trends, Perspectives, and Considerations for Sampling

作者：Joshua P. Newton, Morten E. Allentoft, Philip W. Bateman, Mieke van der Heyde, Paul Nevill · 发表于：Environmental DNA · 年份：2025 · DOI：10.1002/edn3.70056 · 被引用次数：39 · 研究领域：Environmental DNA in Biodiversity Studies、Identification and Quantification in Food、Genomics and Phylogenetic Studies

ABSTRACT Terrestrial vertebrates are experiencing worldwide population declines and species extinctions. To effectively conserve remaining populations and species, rapid, cost‐effective, and scalable methods are needed to complement longstanding monitoring methods. Increasingly, environmental DNA (eDNA)‐based approaches are being used for terrestrial vertebrate biomonitoring within a range of environments. However, as we move eDNA biomonitoring onto land, we are presented with a new set of challenges. This necessitates the development of “best‐practice” eDNA sample collection guidelines for terrestrial systems with the purpose of detecting terrestrial vertebrates. To address these needs, we conducted a systematic literature review of 143 peer‐reviewed papers applying eDNA to terrestrial vertebrate monitoring (excluding Lissamphibia) that were published between 2012 and 2023. We summarize the use of eDNA for terrestrial vertebrate biomonitoring, focusing on study design and field techniques. Over the decade we observe a steady growth in the annual number of publications, with 3 in 2012 and 33 in 2023. The majority of the reviewed studies targeted terrestrial mammals within temperate forest regions. While an equal number of studies focused on a metabarcoding approach to assess community taxon composition and/or species‐specific eDNA detection methods, novel uses are increasingly published. These include studies of animal behavior and population genetics. We record three types o...