A Systematic Scoping Review on the Current Applications of Environmental DNA (eDNA).

Citation: Sor, SX, Wee, YY, Kng, X, Ling, MHT. 2022. A Systematic Scoping Review on the Current Applications of Environmental DNA (eDNA). EC Clinical and Medical Case Reports 5(4): 46-64.

Link to [Abstract] and [PDF].

Here is the permanent [PDF], and [Data set] links to my archive.

Environmental DNA (eDNA) are DNA shredded by an organism to its surrounding, which presents a non-invasive means to detect organisms of interests or to assess the biodiversity of the specific environment. Applications of eDNA is rapidly growing but a systematic review on the breath and depth of the applications of eDNA has not been carried out. Here, we present a systematic scoping review of the current applications of eDNA up to July 31, 2021, using Google Scholar and PubMed as source databases. 159 articles were identified, and 54 articles were included in this review. Our analysis suggests 10 themes of applications; namely, (a) detecting rare, cryptic or endangered species, (b) detecting bacterial and parasitic pathogens/disease outbreaks, (c) invasive species detection, (d) biodiversity characterisation and biomonitoring, (e) spawning ecology, (f) management of fisheries, (h) hatchery management/selective breeding application, (i) forensic/forensic ecology, (j) crop cultivation and soil fertility, and (k) anthropogenic effects on biodiversity.