fundamentals of eDNA

Study design is something that can get very complicated very quickly, however I always find it to be the most engaging and exciting part of a project for me (at least for eDNA; I am a big fan of planning a project and seeing the results, the in between stuff… meeeeh). I love discovering new papers like de Souza et al. 2014 that brings basic points to light that should be considered for things like eDNA survey design, such as sampling when the organism is most active. This has huge implications; are there certain behaviors that produce more eDNA (I’ve read papers about carp with different diets producing different amounts of eDNA, for example), can you use eDNA to determine active periods of an organism, etc.? The whole idea of power analysis is also something I find very attractive as my field is very interested in knowing what survey designs should be, hence my one of my thesis chapters essentially being a pilot study to determine how powerful the technique is in the hardest conditions (attempting to detect a single turtle from up to a kilometer away).