Kia ora koutou,

Welcome to the latest edition of The Extract, a roundup of highlights from the wilderness over the last couple of months and upcoming events to keep on the radar. In this issue we’re covering:

• The inaugural Australasian eDNA conference in February

• A warm welcome to Nico van Loon, our new Director of Operations

• An upcoming eDNA opportunity for catchment groups and land trusts

• New eDNA contingency kits with spare sampling components

• World Wetlands Day on Feb 2, and a cautionary wetland tale

• WilderWindUps - summarising 2022 in eDNA stats

After being delayed last year due to COVID-19 disruptions, we are very excited to be heading to Hobart, Tasmania for the inaugural Australasian eDNA conference next month!

You can check out the full programme here.

This will be a great opportunity to reconnect with some of our colleagues from around the pacific, kanohi ki te kanohi. If you’re heading along to attend, we’d love to see you - you’ll be able to find some of our friendly staff at Wilderlab’s booth in the main event space.

Welcome to our new Director of Operations, Nico van Loon

We are very excited to introduce our new Director of Operations, Nico van Loon, who joined our team near the end of last year!

Calling all catchment groups and land trusts!

Based off the huge success from their last project round (read more about these ongoing projects here), the NZ EPA’s Wai Tuwhera o te Taiao team has coordinated another opportunity to further the reach of the programme to support catchment groups and land trusts on their eDNA journeys.

Wilderlab has joined the NZ EPA and NZ Landcare Trust in a three-way match fund to support the launch of an additional twelve eDNA projects around the country. Successful projects will receive eDNA sampling kits, testing, and additional support to undertake robust sampling of waterways that are important to their community. Some examples of projects include:

• Monitoring a site over time

• Obtaining baselines of biodiversity and ecological condition

• Determining distributions of mahinga kai species and pest species

• Comparing sites within an area

Last week, we helped to deliver an introductory webinar detailing everything you need to know in order to plan your eDNA project and prepare your proposal. Don’t worry if you missed it, you can view the webinar recording here.

The proposal portal is now officially open until the 28th of February. If this sounds like something your community would want to be a part of, head over to the portal to learn more!

If you have any questions about the programme, you can read more on the EPA’s website and reach out to their team at edna@epa.govt.nz.

Think of packing a contingency kit for your upcoming fieldwork

Despite the best planning, eDNA sampling can sometimes go awry. Whether it’s a dropped filter, a soggy glove, or a loss of preservative, we want to help you stay prepared for these situations and are introducing new sampling contingency kits.

These contingency kits include spares of all the consumables in our syringe eDNA kits. We urge those undertaking larger projects to keep one in your proverbial back pocket!

February 2nd marks the day that the world shines an extra light on one of the most productive environments; our wetlands.

For Aotearoa, wetlands are extremely valuable both culturally and ecologically, supporting a rich biodiversity and enacting key ecosystem services such as filtering nutrients and contaminants, sediment, and controlling floodwaters.

In our blog for last years World Wetland Day, we touched on some of the key difficulties facing eDNA surveillance in wetlands, and highlighted some areas that researchers are looking at to work around them. We are excited to see that there are several research projects being carried out over the next year to grow our understanding of how eDNA behaves in wetland environments, and look forward to be able to share guidance on monitoring protocols as we continue to learn more.

A new method currently being trialed for wetland monitoring involves a composite ‘bucket-sampling’ approach. Sample water can be collected from different sections of a wetland, pooled into a bucket, and syringe-filtered directly from the bucket to simulate a well mixed environment. This has shown some promising results for overcoming some of the limitations related to low mixing rates and high turbidity; however, we wanted to share a recent experience as a reminder of the importance of thorough decontamination of sampling gear when using this method!

One of our customers had a shock recently when his eDNA results showed the presence of DNA from tropical aquarium fish, including angelfish and neon tetras! He had taken a composite sample, placing six samples from across the wetland into a bucket, and allowing the water to settle before filtering from the bucket using a Wilderlab 6-replicate syringe kit. Unbeknownst to him at the time, his daughter had borrowed his bucket the day before to clean out her tropical fish tank!

In this case the source of contamination was obvious, but it goes to show the importance of working with clean sampling gear, particularly things like buckets, waders, and gumboots. DNA can persist in water for several days and can remain stable in a dried state for many years. We recommend rinsing all equipment with a freshly made 10% bleach solution, or for items containing metal that can be corroded by bleach (like zips on waders), a good soak in warm soapy water followed by a thorough rinse in tap water. We also urge folks to be extra cautious of sources of contamination in the water they collect for their composite, and to ensure that only freshly undisturbed water is collected.

We are planning to produce a tutorial video about contamination and decontamination in the next few months. In the meantime, if you have any questions or concerns about DNA contamination, please don’t hesitate to give us a call on 0800 336 295.

With the New Year upon us, we’ve had several enquiries from people who are curious to see their organisation’s eDNA sampling efforts during 2022.

Our Junior Designer, Mikayla, and Data Scientist & Developer, Susan, have been cooking up some visual options for displaying these summaries. Check out Wilderlab’s below!

If this is something that your group or organisation is interested in receiving, please get in touch via info@wilderlab.co.nz and we’ll help you out.

Otherwise keep an eye out for avid eDNA samplers and their WindUps over the next few weeks!