New Funding: Spider-Web eDNA for Forest Monitoring
Published:
Excited to share that our spider-web eDNA project has been awarded three years of funding through the New Hampshire Agricultural Experiment Station’s Hatch program, starting September 2026. The project builds directly on the pilot work highlighted by the Southeast Land Trust of NH in The Understory.
Over the next three years, we’ll work with the Squam Lakes Natural Science Center, The Nature Conservancy, and NH Fish & Game to: 1) calibrate how biomass and distance affect eDNA detection using known wildlife enclosures at Squam Lakes; 2) test how forest management (patch cuts, thinning, and reserves) shapes wildlife and forest-pathogen detection at TNC’s Green Hills and Surry Mountain Preserves; and 3) pair spider-web eDNA with camera-trap and acoustic data, alongside colleagues Remington Moll and Laura Kloepper, to model wildlife distributions across New Hampshire’s Wildlife Management Units.
More to come as sampling ramps up this fall.