First Insight into eDNA
As someone who is completely new to the eDNA world, I found both of the papers very interesting. The Tallbear paper really emphasized the issues that many tribes face relating to their genetics and spirituality. I thought the tribal politics regarding genetic testing were interesting and it would definitely be challenging as a leader to figure out a balance between culturally being indigenous and genetically being indigenous. It really brought to light the complexity of indigenous tribes because I was always under the impression that being part of a tribe was more about one’s connection to the land and their spirituality rather than any type of genetic relationship. The eDNA paper was very helpful for me to get a better understanding of the general rules/methods for eDNA studies. It was interesting to learn all of the specifics of the way the DNA is preserved in different environments and also that eDNA analysis works better on vertebrates than invertebrates which is helpful when planning a study. Being aware of the uncertainty that comes with eDNA projects and the high probabilities of having false positives and negatives was an important part of the paper for me and the fact that they provide ways to troubleshoot that. I have a small background I bioinformatics as well so I enjoyed the parts that they discussed the data analysis parts of eDNA sampling. Both papers provided a good introduction to the importance of genetics, good practices for studying eDNA, and made me excited for the rest of the semester.