Aquatic environmental DNA: Applications for assessment and monitoring vertebrate

Environmental DNA from water samples (aquatic eDNA) is a noninvasive, cost-effective and high-throughput tool to conduct biodiversity assessment of both hydrobionts and terrestrial organisms that live nearby or frequently come into contact with a waterbody. Due to the exceptional importance of vertebrates in biomonitoring, a wide range of vertebrate taxonomic groups have been studied in recent years in various ecosystems using aquatic eDNA assays, including endangered, rare, secretive and elusive species that are often missed by traditional survey methods. Given that the potential uses of eDNA vary among different vertebrate groups, in this article we provide an overview of the use of aquatic eDNA for monitoring fish, amphibians, reptiles, mammals, and birds in small and large, marine and fresh water bodies from the tropics to the Arctic. We discuss the main applications of aquatic eDNA for single species detection, biodiversity assessment, genetic characterization, and biomass estimation.