Seminar: eDNA Across Ecosystems: Forest, Freshwater and Deadwood Biodiversity

Environmental DNA (eDNA) is increasingly used as a non-invasive tool for biodiversity monitoring, and rivers offer a particularly useful sampling medium. In my PhD, I used eDNA from rivers to study mammal diversity in tropical forests, evaluating eDNA-based approaches for mammal detection through modelling and applying eDNA to uncover rare mammals across remote and transformed forest landscapes. In my current postdoc, I am interested in deadwood as a biodiversity hotspot where bacteria, fungi, and insects drive decomposition and carbon cycling, using eDNA metagenomics. In this talk, I will present findings across these systems and discuss what they reveal about using eDNA to monitor biodiversity in the context of land-use change and forest management, as well as case studies from the monitoring of aquatic biodiversity.

I am interested in applying molecular approaches to monitoring biodiversity and studying forest dynamics. I've completed a PhD in May of 2025 at Ecosystems and Landscape Evolution group (WSL/ETH Zurich) and since March 2026 I have been pursuing a postdoc in Forest Entmology group at WSL, applying eDNA methods to understand the drivers of deadwood decay.