Ms Esther Duve1, Dr Rachel Tulloch2, James Lidsey1, Dr James Brazill-Boast1, Joel Stibbard1, Dr Francisco Encinas-Viso2, Dr Erin Hahn2
1Biodiversity Conservation Trust, Parramatta, Australia, 2Commonwealth Scientific Industrial Research Organisation, Canberra, Australia
Biography:
Esther Duve is a fourth-year student at the Australian National University studying Environmental Science with a particular interest in biodiversity conservation and land management. She has experience in research assisting the Biodiversity Conservation Trust in a citizen science project partnering with private landholders to monitoring biodiversity.
Abstract:
Scaling biodiversity monitoring across large, privately managed landscapes requires approaches that are practical to deploy and informative across diverse taxa. In partnership with the NSW Biodiversity Conservation Trust's Land Libraries initiative, we tested community-led airborne eDNA monitoring across 20 private conservation properties in New South Wales. We asked whether citizen scientists could reliably collect airborne eDNA samples, how spatial and temporal sampling effort influenced biodiversity recovery, and how airborne eDNA complements existing biodiversity monitoring approaches. Landholders deployed one, three, or six passive samplers over two or three sampling periods, with samples analysed using multi-marker metabarcoding targeting plants, metazoans, and fungi. Participants returned 123 of 124 expected samples with high adherence to deployment protocols. Airborne eDNA recovered more than 1,000 taxa, with mean richness increasing from 39 taxa with one sampler to 143 with six, without reaching saturation. Single sampling weeks recovered only 42–50% of the richness observed across three weeks, while low overlap among replicate samplers and sampling periods revealed substantial spatial and temporal heterogeneity in detections. Comparison with complementary biodiversity observations showed marked differences in taxonomic recovery: airborne eDNA recovered far greater fungal diversity, while alternative methods recovered greater plant and metazoan diversity. These results demonstrate the feasibility of community-led airborne eDNA sampling while highlighting the importance of spatial and temporal replication. They provide practical guidance for balancing sampling effort, biodiversity recovery, and complementarity when designing scalable biodiversity monitoring programs.