Biodiversity Monitoring: Staying in Contact with Nature
By Caitlin
March 2025
Biodiversity monitoring
I bet you didn’t know for over three decades, scientists have been recording the number of species present in every town and city. That there are scientists who collect air to determine what animals flew past that particular area a few hours ago. There will be someone carefully scooping up soil to analyse under a microscope. All these scientists may look mad at first glance are actually monitoring the biodiversity.
Biodiversity monitoring is overlooked by the public, most people not even aware of what it is. The biodiversity literacy VIP aims to spread awareness and peak people’s interest of this while maintaining and improving biodiversity in and around the university. As a student studying biology in St Andrews, I have collected data to aid in biodiversity monitoring however my experience left me researching deeper into different methods and the ethics of it. In this blog, I will be discussing what exactly biodiversity monitoring is, my experience of it and some different kinds of data sampling techniques.
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What is biodiversity monitoring?
Biodiversity monitoring is the tracking of species diversity (number of different species), population sizes (number of the same species) and distribution of species in an ecosystem over time. This monitoring will happen across animal and plant species. With all this data, scientists can assess how these ecosystem dynamics change over time in habitats experiencing negative human impacts such as climate change and urbanisation, or in response to positive impacts such as conservation efforts.
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Why is this important?
Scientists are most interested in observing changes in biodiversity. A change in an ecosystem could signify lots of things, such as an unhappy ecosystem. Humans drastically alter the natural environment via urbanization, agriculture, and deforestation. Monitoring biodiversity can give an indication on the extent of which humans are negatively impacting an ecosystem and thus find solutions to prevent this. The sooner a suffering ecosystem is spotted, the sooner people can act and the higher the chance our help will be successful. Helping ecosystems could include creating conservation areas or implementing re-wilding strategies. In St Andrews, the VIP is focusing on increasing the number of biodiverse friendly areas around the campus, with a proposal being made to re-wild 10 areas around the university. The success of these conservation strategies can also be quantified by using biodiversity monitoring.
It is essential to continue monitoring biodiversity more than ever now to observe the impacts of global warming. Many species are forced to migrate due to increased temperatures and a lack of food. This can already be seen in St Andrews as many members of the VIP havespotted birds much too late or early in the season, suggesting their biological clocks are out- of-sync with the shift in climate patterns. This could have detrimental consequences to the birds as they reach their migration destination at the wrong season, resulting a lack of food and resources available.
Traditional sampling Methods vs eDNA
Recently, I got to a engage in biodiversity monitoring with the university as part of the zoology course. This was a great opportunity to experience different sampling techniques which involved sweep netting (trapping species using nets), see Figure 1, and pit fall traps (leaving a trap on the ground for 24 hours). We were targeting invertebrate species and would preserve specimens using ethanol to identify, see Figure 2.
Figure 1: My experience sampling invertebrates. Left, sweep nets with a test tube attached to end to capture terrestrial insects. Right, nets used to capture aquatic pond invertebrates. Here, the samples of the net would be sorted into a sieve before being placed in a test tube.
Figure 2: Pond invertebrates in a test tube containing ethanol. Here you can clearly see some common backswimmers and pond snails. If you look close enough you can also spot a small cluster of eggs!
While this way a great experience, I did feel like we were doing things backwards. Our efforts at conserving this environment started off by killing all the animals we captured! This did not sit right with me, so after some further research into the matter I came across eDNA.
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eDNA, also known as environmental DNA, is genetic material organisms have left behind in the environment. This will happen when an animal brushes up against a leaf, steps on the ground, or even flaps its wings. eDNA samples can be collected from plants, the soil, or the air. The traces of DNA that the animal has left behind can be used to identify the species. This means biodiversity can be monitored without killing or even disturbing organisms. This method also allows rare and harder to find species to be identified, especially animals living in hard-to-reach areas such as the deep sea. The only downside to using this technique is it can’t determine populations sizes.
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Thus, further research led me to find other techniques that can be used alongside eDNA to create the most holistic picture of biodiversity possible. This can include camera traps, cameras set out in the natural environment which will take photos every certain amount of time or will be triggered by movement. Scientists in Peru found 27 new species using this combination of eDNA and camera traps, see Figure 3.
Figure 3: Scientists in Peru found several new species, including the blob-headed fish (left) and an amphibious mouse (right). Scientific names have not been assigned to them yet. Images sourced from BBC News.
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The VIP project also monitors biodiversity with the aid of camera traps. These cameras have helped us spot several animals we would have otherwise not seen, see Figure 4. With this knowledge we can spread awareness to other students on the amazing animals found in this town.
Figure 4: Screenshot of a badger recording climbing up the hill and drying itself. This was taken using a camera trap set up in St Andrews by one of the VIP students.
Now that you are informed on biodiversity monitoring, you have the chance to appreciate just how biodiverse the world is around you. Step into your back garden or front door and you may be surprised at the wildlife around you! Biodiversity monitoring helps recognise those species that are thriving or struggling beside us. Who knows, maybe someday you will be involved in protecting and keeping our amazing planet being safe and bursting of life. For now, I am grateful for the VIP for giving me an opportunity to aid in improving ways we can share this planet with nature.