Determining how well eDNA can serve as a proxy for directly
observing organisms is an area of active research that will
influence how eDNA methods should be applied to biological
conservationGuidance is available from other fields that make
inferences about organisms based solely on indirect genetic evidence
from environmental samples. These include microbiology
forensics
paleogenetics fecal pollution tracking
and agricultural transgene monitoring
. Across these fields, three major features differentiate
detection of eDNA from detection of organisms: contamination,
time, and space.