Environmental DNA (eDNA) is a practicable tool to provide information on biodiversity. This tool has been developed in the field of molecular biology and has big potential to reduce the time and effort for modern biological monitoring. The rapid technological development in eDNA analysis has happened during the last decade. The key aim of this methodology is to provide big data on species in nature. For marine biodiversity conservation, the application of eDNA analysis has big potential to detect the presence of non-indigenous species and endangered species. The NOWPAP's Special Monitoring and Coastal Environmental Assessment Regional Activity Centre (CEARAC) puts significant efforts into introducing eDNA in the NOWPAP region as a new monitoring tool for marine biodiversity conservation in the near future.
On the other hand, the eDNA analysis technique is an innovative approach, and a standardised methodology has not yet been developed anywhere in the world. Japan is a leading country in this study domain. Leading eDNA experts are developing a series of activities to facilitate sharing Japanese experiences and techniques with the other NOWPAP Member States.
NOWPAP CEARAC had planned to organise a training course on eDNA analysis in the 2020-2021 biennium to share the cutting-edges techniques amongst young scientists. However, the training course had to be cancelled due to the COVID-19 pandemic and difficulties caused by the restrictions introduced by the national governments on international travel.
To share the current knowledge and practices on analysing eDNA samples among scientists of the NOWPAP Member States, NOWPAP CEARAC, with the support of Professor Toshifumi MINAMOTO (Kobe University) Professor Akihide KASAI (Hokkaido University), developed a detailed video manual.
The video manual is available on NOWPAP CEARAC's YouTube channel: youtu.be/I4K00_ysCtc.
