fundamentals of eDNA

I really like the idea that eDNA has its own ecology (depicted in Figure 2 from Cristescu and Hebert 2018) that we have to consider when analyzing it. It’s not like there’s an impartial record of biodiversity hiding out there in eDNA—the record is imperfect and biased and our analyses must account for that

I also appreciated that we could think about different perspectives on genetics research. It’s important to remember that while I might be excited by the prospects of genetics technology to unlock biodiversity data, other people have experienced genetics research as exploitative and colonial. Reading TallBear (2013) was a great introduction to some of those perspectives. I also wanted to share a nice essay I was reminded of during our discussion. In it Dr. Katherine Crocker narrates some of her experience of being Indigenous in science.