EnviroDNA & Environmental DNA FAQs

We operate purpose-built eDNA laboratories based in Melbourne, Australia and deliver our solutions across Australia and around the globe. If you are interested to partner with us for an international project, let us know and we can advise you on the protocols required.

We work with a broad range of organisations including government, consultancies, not-for-profit and conservation organisations, Traditional Owner corporations, developers, universities, private organisations and more.

Yes, we accept international samples. To safely do so, we arrange the necessary shipment and delivery of goods protocols in order to comply with Australia's regulations for importing biological materials. These permit requirements are completed during the onboarding process of your project. Discuss your project with us and we are happy to assist.

EnviroDNA has an established team of eDNA research scientists who have contributed to hundreds of scientific publications. We are always working to advance eDNA science and are currently undertaking R&D to advance eDNA air sampling.

Address: Level 1, 95 Albert Street, Brunswick 3056, Melbourne, Victoria.

If you are shipping samples, they can be packaged in any parcel bag or box. There is no need for insulated shipping containers. We recommend using priority courier or express postage to safely deliver your samples. Sample filters must be kept at cool ambient temperature and out of sunlight and transported to EnviroDNA within 10 days (manual syringe filters with preservative) or 30 days (self-preserving Smith-Root filters) of sampling (sooner is better to minimise risk of degradation). Self-preserving Smith-Root filters do not need to be frozen and doing so will interfere with the self-preservation. If frozen, notify your EnviroDNA project manager so they can be handled correctly upon arrival at EnviroDNA. 

In the interest of sustainability, please do not send samples in an esky (hard plastic or styrofoam) unless specifically requested. Any eskies received will be returned at your expense. 

We don’t have a preferred courier, however, we do suggest sending with tracking so you can monitor to avoid delivery delays. We recommend that you send them with express post (e.g. via AusPost) or your preferred courier service.

Please enter the tracking details in the notes section of the chain of custody submission form we send you on initiation of your project or email us with the details so we can make sure it reaches us safely.

Yes, we do store samples. As standard procedure we keep samples from all projects for up to six months after project completion. After this period, we will contact you to see if you would like them returned to you (a fee will be applied for postage charges) or if you would like to extend your sample storage with us. We offer this extended sample storage for an additional cost per sample. The benefit is that you can go back at a later stage after completing a sampling program for a specific species, for example, platypus, to then analysis the samples for another species/ taxonomic group of interest (e.g. fish biodiversity). This can be helpful if you have limited budget initially or want to expand the baseline biodiversity assessment you may be completing to include additional taxa.

Purchase eDNA sampling kits for your project by directly contacting our team at info@envirodna.com or submitting an enquiry through the form on our website. Please let us know the details of your project, including your analysis and we can advise you on the appropriate type of kit, number of replicates and quantities for your project.

EnviroDNA unfortunately does not supply our EnviroDNA eDNA sampling kits without analysis at this time. If you would like to order eDNA filtration packs without analysis, please explore our Smith-Root eDNA filter range.

Our eDNA kits should be stored at room temperature. There is no shelf life for them, so it is fine to order multiple kits at once and use them as needed.

EnviroDNA distributes Smith-Root Inc sampling equipment in Australia and New Zealand only. If you are interested to purchase, obtain a price list or find out more information about this equipment, please contact our Sales team directly at sales@envirodna.com.

EnviroDNA does not offer rentals for Smith-Root equipment. However if you are a client with an active project with EnviroDNA, we are able to accommodate Smith-Root equipment in some circumstances to enable the successful completion of your sampling survey. Please speak with your project manager to discuss.

Smith-Root sampling kits can be safely stored for up to 1 year.

EnviroDNA can help you resolve any issues with your Smith-Root equipment. However complete equipment services or resolving faulty equipment will be handled by Smith-Root directly. Please contact EnviroDNA if you have any problems with your equipment and we will arrange ASAP.

Cost of analysis per sample will vary widely depending on the type of analysis (e.g. target species or biodiversity assessment), number of species or taxonomic groups to be targeted and total number of samples (we apply discounts at higher sample numbers due to efficiencies in bulk processing). Please get in touch with one of friendly Project Managers early in your planning to get advice on sampling design, type of analysis and costs.

Once a project is accepted, EnviroDNA will provide all training, resources and sampling kits required to undertake safe environmental sampling. If you choose, we can also undertake sampling for you or provide in-person demonstrations to your team. Please discuss these options with your project manager.

We always recommend some replication at every site but the ideal number of replicates can vary depending on the type of waterway, target species of interest and level of confidence required. Based on previous analyses and extensive experience, 3 samples per site is often adequate for many aquatic surveys. However, if you require more detailed information for your particular area of interest, we recommend an initial pilot study with some simple sensitivity analyses to inform future sampling design.

EnviroDNA has experience analysing freshwater, groundwater, marine, tissue, plant, swab, sediment, scat, soil, invertebrates and even air samples. Discuss your project objective with us and we can advise on the most appropriate sample type and analysis.

We can design bespoke surveys from scratch to meet your needs but often find the best approach is to provide guidance to support your own knowledge of the local area and target species/groups.

It is possible to get good baseline data from a single sampling event (as long as subsequent surveys are undertaken at the same time of year) but ideally you would have multiple sampling events. We do recommend you consider multiple sampling events over time to accommodate for seasonal variation given how species move through their environment.

Yes, we have successfully detected a range of burrow or hollow dwelling species, including some very cryptic species, from samples such as soil obtained from active burrow entrances or swabs from tree hollows.

Yes, EnviroDNA partners with our sister-company Cesar Australia to detect chytrid samples from frogs. Please contact Cesar Australia directly at info@cesaraustralia.com

There are several factors that can affect how long DNA persists in the environment (e.g. UV, temperature, Oxygen levels, certain bacterial activity). The variation in these environmental factors throughout a year is likely to vary much less than that created by the target organisms themselves. For example, many frog species only interact with the water during breeding/tadpole phase and are much more likely to be detected in water samples at this time of the year.

Surveys using eDNA are much less impacted by environmental conditions than traditional survey techniques. High rainfall and flooding events can create less than ideal conditions for water sampling as you can get a lot of sediment entering the water that will clog filters and limit the amount of water that can be filtered. Very high-water levels and flooding events may also create a dilution effect that can lower detection rates. Ideally, we would avoid sampling immediately following heavy rainfall to improve sample quality.

In stagnant water there is less mixing and dispersal of DNA compared to flowing water and so you need to adjust your sampling protocols accordingly. If you are looking for a particular species in a big wetland, you would target sampling around their particular habitat rather than just taking random samples around the wetland. For broad coverage, you can also collect a number of subsamples across a wetland or lake that are pooled into a (sterile) bucket, which you can then take your replicate field samples.  

We can design both qPCR assays and metabarcoding assays providing there is adequate genetic material available. Even for single species assays, we not only require sequences for the target species, but other species that occur so we can test and validate against these (i.e. ensure the assay is not detecting off-target species). Most of the genetic information would be from public databases but we may require tissue samples for key species or to fill gaps.

Yes, eDNA techniques were originally developed for just this reason. Due to its very high sensitivity, incursions of invasive species can often be detected much earlier than using traditional techniques. Early detection significantly increases the success rate of control and eradication efforts.

Predator scats are an excellent repository of genetic information in terrestrial environments. Invasive species such as cats and foxes are (unfortunately) excellent predators with generalist diets and can provide a good overview of vertebrate biodiversity or help to locate scarce, cryptic species. Owl, raptor, snake scats can also be great sources of information. Any data should be interpreted with the predators behaviour and dietary preferences in mind.

Similar data can be obtained from insectivores or herbivores. Microbats can be excellent sources of insect diversity of an area and even be used as early detectors of invasive agricultural pests (chiro-surveillance).

Yes, although due to the huge diversity of plants, reference libraries are patchy so species level identification is not always possible.

Invertebrates can be an excellent indicator of biodiversity and ecosystem health in aquatic or terrestrial habitats. There are a number of assays available for invertebrates that target different groups/Families. We use a multi-assay approach to provide broad coverage across invertebrate diversity. Due to the huge diversity of invertebrates, reference libraries are patchy so species level identification is not always possible.

Viruses yes, certainly possible although there is so much diversity and so much that it is still not yet described at the moment, so it would need to be a virus that we have good genetic data for to be able to identify it within the sample. Some viruses do not survive for long in the environment which might limit the ability to detect them. We cannot detect affected species from an environmental sample but if you are for example looking at a virus that occurs in a fish species, if you catch those fishes you can actually test the tissue sample from those species to see if they are affected by a particular virus. Then the tissue sample would become the environmental sample.

Yes, we can run multiple analyses on the same samples. Once you have extracted the DNA you can use it to target a species as well as a biodiversity assessment for fish, for example, by using that same sample. Ideally this is done at the same time but we store all samples for at least six months after a project to allow for further analyses if required.

qPCR can be more sensitive and more targeted than metabarcoding for some species with lower costs and quicker turnaround times. However, the qPCR assay must be well designed and validated for your species of interest and your geographical location as even a small genetic variation can reduce its effectiveness.

We can quantify the amount of DNA in a sample and that can correlate with species abundance. However, there are many factors that may affect the amount of DNA in a sample (i.e. species behaviour, distance from source, size of organism etc) and this information is generally not very informative at a sample or site level. A carefully designed sampling program can provide good information on relative abundance which, for example, can be very useful to quantify the effectiveness of control efforts for an invasive species (e.g. carp removal).

Alternatively, using a different metric such as site occupancy (the proportion of sites a species is detected) can be a more effective indicator of population health than “abundance” over a larger area. This can be particularly useful for widespread and dispersed species such as platypuses.

eDNA analysis can be extremely sensitive, particularly in aquatic environments. Numerous studies have demonstrated that eDNA is more sensitive than traditional survey techniques for detecting species. This high sensitivity make eDNA techniques very useful for detecting rare or cryptic species or early detection of incursions of invasive species.

One of the components of eDNA is how long it stays in the environment - does it stay in the environment for a long period of time? Once you remove target species from the environment the DNA is gone often within a week sometimes only a few days. There is a very rapid breakdown due to the type of material shedding or secreting into the environment. Fish species DNA is very quick to disappear other species it persists a little bit longer. You can determine whether something is alive or dead, but the techniques are very different and not as easy to use as what we are doing with eDNA. 

DNA degrades relatively quickly once shed from an organism. There are a number of factors that can affect how long DNA persists in the environment (e.g. UV, temperature, oxygen levels, certain bacterial activity). In aquatic systems, DNA will generally persist for around 1-7 days.

The more water you can filter, the higher your chance will be of finding certain DNA, but the relationship is not linear and you will get diminishing returns. The ideal number of replicates can vary depending on the size of waterway, target species of interest and level of confidence required. Based on previous analyses and extensive experience, 3 samples per site is often adequate for many aquatic surveys. However, if you require more detailed information for your particular area of interest, we recommend an initial pilot study with some simple sensitivity analyses to inform future sampling design.

For all projects, you will receive a Excel spreadsheet file with your data and a basic PDF report outlining the methods and a results summary. For projects that provide site location information, we also provide an interactive online portal that includes some figures and a map to further explore your data at the site level.

Equivocal is a term used when using our Target analysis type (qPCR). Essentially, samples with 1 positive qPCR, which we term an equivocal result, indicates lower levels of target DNA and as such are classified as a “possible detection”. This can signal that the target species is present in low abundance or only transiently occupies a site. However, such results can also arise from contamination (natural or experimental) so we exercise caution when interpreting these results. In these cases, if greater confidence is required, further sampling is recommended at equivocal sites to confirm the presence of the target species.