Building Global Capacity and Best Practices in Marine Passive eDNA Sampling
Background and rationale
Environmental DNA (eDNA) is rapidly emerging as a transformative, cost-effective, and scalable approach for detecting and monitoring marine biodiversity across diverse marine environments, from surface waters to the deep sea. Passive eDNA samplers, such as membranes, gauze, and other adsorption‑based materials, offer clear advantages over active eDNA filtration methods, particularly regarding operational simplicity, minimal equipment requirements, and suitability for remote, low‑infrastructure, and deep‑ocean applications, making them especially valuable for global capacity-building efforts. However, the absence of internationally agreed best-practice guidance has led to methodological inconsistencies, limiting data comparability, quality assurance, and uptake for policy-relevant decision-making, including reporting under the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework, SDG 14, and the UN Decade.
PASSIV‑e‑DNA aims to address this critical gap by developing a “Best Practices Guide for Marine Passive eDNA sampling” internationally accepted by major eDNA networks worldwide. This initiative proposes to harmonize approaches across sampler types, deployment environments, and research objectives, while defining minimum quality standards to ensure robust, interoperable biodiversity observations. By generating standardized data, the guide will directly support societal priorities such as sustainable fisheries management, early detection of invasive species, monitoring of marine protected areas, and the implementation of the BBNJ Treaty on biodiversity beyond national jurisdiction . The guidance will remain adaptable to diverse resource levels and observing platforms, thereby supporting equitable worldwide global adoption.
The working group will bring together leading researchers from institutions across the Americas, Europe, and West Africa, ensuring broad geographic representation, knowledge exchange, and relevance to ocean observation systems. Key activities will include coordinated methodological reviews, structured expert discussions, and an in‑person capacity‑development workshop designed to foster consensus, support early‑career scientists, and strengthen participation from low‑ and middle‑income regions. Dissemination through POGO and OBON will ensure widespread uptake and alignment with GOOS Essential Ocean Variables framework.
Global Context
Global Ocean biodiversity monitoring is entering a critical phase, as international commitments such as the UN Decade, the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework, and major global observing initiatives demand cost‑effective, scalable, and inclusive technologies capable of delivering comparable, decision‑ready data across regions and environments. Environmental DNA (eDNA) has rapidly emerged as a transformative tool for detecting and monitoring marine biodiversity, yet its broader operational uptake remains constrained by logistical complexity, cost, and the lack of methodological standardization, particularly for long‑term and deep‑sea observations.
Passive eDNA sampling represents a step‑change opportunity. By eliminating the need for pumps, large power supplies, and complex filtration systems and significantly reducing operational costs, passive samplers enable biodiversity observations in resource-limited, remote, and deep‑ocean settings that are underrepresented in global datasets. However, despite increasing use, the absence of internationally agreed best‑practice guidance has led to fragmented methodologies, variable data quality, and limited interoperability within global observing systems.
PASSIV‑e‑DNA directly addresses this gap by convening a geographically and institutionally diverse, international working group to co‑develop the first consensus‑based Best Practices Guide for Marine Passive eDNA Sampling. By combining expert synthesis, evidence review, and hands-on capacity development, the project ensures that guidance is scientifically robust, operationally realistic, and adaptable across socioeconomic contexts.
For POGO, PASSIV‑e‑DNA aligns strongly with strategic priorities in human and institutional capacity development, technology democratization, and sustained ocean observing. The project directly supports OBON by strengthening quality assurance, comparability, and uptake of low‑cost molecular approaches within global frameworks such as GOOS. Success will be measured through adoption of the guide by institutions across multiple continents and integration into OBON and GOOS protocols. Importantly, the outputs will have lasting impact beyond the project lifespan by empowering researchers, especially in low‑ and middle‑income regions, to contribute high‑quality, policy‑relevant biodiversity data to sustained global ocean observation.
Relevance to POGO and fit with POGO’s Strategy
The PASSIV‑e‑DNA initiative contributes directly to all three pillars of the POGO Strategy: 1. Innovation in ocean observing, 2. Capacity development, and 3. Outreach and advocacy. POGO’s overarching goal is to enable worldwide cooperation for a sustainable, state‑of‑the‑art global ocean observing system that serves the needs of science and society through coordinated methodologies, accessible technologies, and strengthened human capacity.
First, PASSIV‑e‑DNA advances innovation in ocean observing by addressing a critical methodological gap in marine biomolecular observations. Passive eDNA sampling offers a low‑cost, logistically simple, and widely deployable approach for observing marine biodiversity across coastal, pelagic, and deep‑sea environments. However, POGO has consistently highlighted the importance of standards, guidelines, and best practices to ensure interoperability across global observing systems. By co‑developing a consensus‑based Best Practices Guide for marine passive eDNA sampling, this working group directly supports POGO’s emphasis on harmonised methods and decision‑ready data within next‑generation observing systems, including OBON-supported activities.
Second, the initiative strongly contributes to capacity development, a cornerstone of POGO’s mission, particularly for scientists and institutions in developing countries and economies in transition. PASSIV‑e‑DNA prioritises knowledge transfer, inclusive expert participation, and an in‑person capacity‑building workshop targeting early-career scientists from underrepresented regions, ensuring that emerging teams can adopt and apply biomolecular tools that are affordable and operationally feasible. This approach aligns with POGO’s long‑standing commitment to training, skills transfer, and long‑term institutional strengthening rather than short‑term project outputs.
Finally, PASSIV‑e‑DNA supports outreach and advocacy by delivering globally applicable guidance that enhances the societal relevance of ocean observing. By improving the reliability and comparability of biodiversity data, the working group strengthens the evidence base needed for conservation, management, and international biodiversity commitments, reinforcing POGO’s role as a trusted convener with outputs directly feeding into OBON workflows and global biodiversity reporting frameworks.
Work plan, deliverables and milestones
Purpose and Strategic Rationale
The PASSIV‑e‑DNA Working Group addresses a critical gap in marine biodiversity monitoring: the absence of harmonised best practices for passive environmental DNA sampling. Passive methods, such as membranes, meshes, and adsorption substrates, offer cost‑effective, flexible alternatives to traditional filtration, particularly useful in remote or resource‑limited settings. However, inconsistent protocols limit data comparability and integration into global observing systems. To overcome this, the group aims to develop the first international, consensus‑based Best Practices Guide, balancing scientific rigor and operational feasibility. As a living document embedded within OBON, it uniquely focuses on passive approaches and promotes scalable, low‑resource applications for global marine monitoring.
Implementation Approach
PASSIV‑e‑DNA will be operationalized through a structured, multi‑phase framework integrating knowledge synthesis, expert consensus, capacity development, and strategic dissemination to ensure methodological robustness and global applicability. The initiative will begin by convening an internationally representative working group comprising experts from both POGO‑affiliated and external institutions, ensuring diversity in geographic coverage and technical expertise. Through a series of coordinated virtual meetings, participants will conduct a systematic scoping review of existing passive eDNA sampling methodologies in marine environments. This review will critically assess sampler types (e.g., membranes, meshes, adsorption substrates), deployment configurations and durations, contamination control measures, quality assurance protocols, replication strategies, and metadata/reporting standards, as well as documented performance across surface, water column, and deep‑sea contexts.
Building on this comprehensive evidence base, the working group will synthesise current practices into consensus‑driven recommendations that define minimum quality thresholds for generating reliable, decision‑ready data. These recommendations will balance scientific rigor with operational flexibility, enabling adaptation across diverse environmental conditions, sampling platforms, and logistical constraints. Alignment with established ocean observing frameworks will be explicitly prioritised, including integration with Essential Ocean Variables (EOVs) and contributions to the development and application of Essential Biodiversity Variables (EBVs).
A central component of the initiative is an in‑person capacity‑development workshop designed to facilitate co‑production of knowledge, methodological harmonisation, and institutional strengthening. The workshop will prioritise early‑career researchers and participants from low‑ and middle‑income countries, recognising passive eDNA as a scalable and accessible entry point to biomolecular ocean observation. Emphasis will be placed on fostering sustained institutional uptake rather than short‑term training outcomes.
The project will be implemented over a 12‑month period (November 2026–October 2027) following seven sequential milestones: group establishment, methodological review, consensus development, capacity‑building workshop, drafting of the Best Practices Guide, iterative revision and finalisation, and broad dissemination through POGO and OBON channels. Outputs will be openly accessible to maximise visibility, interoperability, and adoption within global ocean observing, research, and monitoring communities.
| Milestones | Date to be reached | |
| 1 | Establishment of the PASSIV‑e‑DNA Working Group First virtual meeting for the launch of an internationally diverse working group including experts from POGO‑affiliated and non‑affiliated institutions, ensuring balanced geographic representation and methodological expertise across marine eDNA passive sampling approaches. Assignment of tasks to the individual working group members. |
30/11/2026 |
| 2 | Scoping and Review of Existing Practices Completion of a systematic review of current marine passive eDNA methodologies, including sampler types and materials, deployment strategies, contamination control and quality assurance procedures, metadata and reporting standards, and documented performance across surface, water‑column, and deep‑sea environments. (shared document) |
28/02/2027 |
| 3 | Synthesis and Consensus Building Consolidation of reviewed evidence through structured discussions to identify common challenges, gaps, and best‑practice elements, leading to agreement on minimum quality criteria required to generate comparable and decision‑ready data. (Document and meeting minutes) |
30/04/2027 |
| 4 | Drafting of the Best Practices Guide Preparation of a draft, consensus‑based Best Practices Guide for Marine Passive eDNA Sampling, designed to be scientifically robust, operationally realistic, and adaptable to different observing contexts and resource levels, with explicit alignment to existing ocean observing frameworks. (Shared document) |
30/08/2027 |
| 5 | In‑Person Capacity‑Development Workshop Delivery of an in‑person workshop to support co‑development of guidance, knowledge exchange, and institutional capacity building, with prioritised participation of early‑career scientists and representatives from low‑ and middle‑income countries. (Working document) |
30/07/2027 |
| 6 | Revision and Finalisation of Guide Integration of feedback from working group members and workshop participants to refine and finalise the Best Practices Guide and accompanying technical documentation. (Digital Guide) |
30/09/2027 |
| 7 | Dissemination and Integration within OBON Dissemination of final outputs through POGO and OBON communication channels, ensuring open access, visibility, and positioning for uptake by global ocean observing initiatives, research programmes, and future capacity‑development activities. (Presentation/flyer/newsletter). Special session proposal to ICES ASC 202 about eDNA and fisheries research. |
31/10/2027 |
Status: Active Working group
Year: 2026-2027
Members involved
Working group Participants
Leader
- Carolina Andrea González Espinoza, Instituto Océanos, Chile
- Vanessa Yepes Narváez, INVEMAR, Colombia
Participants
- Pascal Hablützel, VLIZ, Belgium
- A Miguel Piecho-Santos, CCMAR & IPMA, Portugal
- Filipe Costa, CBMA, Portugal
- Winnie Naa Adjorkor Sowah, Department of Marine and Fisheries Sciences. University of Ghana, Ghana
- Mamie Souadou Diop, UCAD & GEOMAR, Senegal/Germany
- Debany Fonseca Batista, Dalhousie University / DOTCAN Institute, Canada
- Kidé Néné Gallé, Higher Institute of Marine Sciences, Mauritania
- Tonna Onyekachukwu Mojekwu, NIOMR & NDA, Nigeria
- Waly Ndianco Ndiaye, Dakar Thiaroye Oceanographic Research Center (CRODT) within the Senegalese Institute for Agricultural Research (ISRA), Senegal
- Annette Govindarajan, WHOI, USA
- Evandro P. Lopes, Institute of Marine Engineering and Sciences of the Atlantic Technical University (UTA), Cabo Verde
- Kevan Yamahara, MBARI, USA