Australia has one of the world’s largest marine park estates. At 3.3 million km², it spans an area three times larger than Germany, France, and the UK combined. Managing and monitoring such a vast and often remote area is logistically challenging and expensive. Current monitoring of Australian parks is decentralised and depends on traditional survey methods. As a result, real-time data on the state of Australia’s marine parks is incomplete, hampering effective management. Environmental DNA has been suggested as a potential solution to some of these challenges, but practical large-scale applications remain largely lacking in Australia. To overcome this, we are developing a roadmap towards integrating eDNA methods in marine park monitoring. We present an overview of the current state of marine monitoring in Australia marine, identify the aspects of bio-monitoring that eDNA can best contribute to, and suggest pathways towards best practice use of eDNA for resource managers in Australia and globally.

Environmental DNA; Marine parks; Management; Monitoring

Maarten De Brauwer

1st DNAQUA International Conference (March 9-11, 2021)