Environmental DNA Group

The Environmental DNA Group works on environmental DNA and the use of metabarcoding and high-throughput sequencing to assess biodiversity.

Research focus

The Environmental DNA Group works on environmental DNA and the use of metabarcoding and high-throughput sequencing to assess biodiversity. We work on developing, optimising and validating environmental DNA techniques and on environmental DNA time-series, diet and iDNA studies, and exploration of novel eDNA sample types. The latter includes our recent demonstration of airborne eDNA for vertebrate detection. The group currently includes two research teams: the Copenhagen group of the ERC Synergy project SeaChange, which assesses the impact of major cultural transitions on marine ecosystem functioning and biodiversity and the Carlsberg Foundation research team dedicated to bring airborne eDNA for vertebrate monitoring into the wild.

Key publications

Link to all publications.

Bohmann K, Elbrecht V, Carøe C, Bista I, Leese F, Bunce M, Yu DW, Seymour M, Dumbrell A, Creer S (2021). Strategies for sample labelling and library preparation in DNA metabarcoding studies. Molecular Ecology Resources 22:4.

Bohmann K, Evans A, Gilbert MTP, Carvalho GR, Creer S, Knapp M, Yu DW & de Bruyn M (2014) Environmental DNA for wildlife biology and biodiversity monitoring. Trends in Ecology & Evolution 29:6.

Carøe C & Bohmann K (2020) Tagsteady: a metabarcoding library preparation protocol to avoid false assignment of sequences to samples. Molecular Ecology Resources 20:6.

Lynggaard C, Bertelsen MF, Jensen CV, Johnson MS, Frøslev TG, Olsen MT, Bohmann K (2022) Airborne environmental DNA for terrestrial vertebrate community monitoring. Current Biology 32.

Schnell IB, Bohmann K & Gilbert MTP (2015) Tag jumps illuminated - reducing sequence-to-sample misidentifications in metabarcoding studies. Molecular Ecology Resources 15:6.