Bits of DNA linger on the forest floor, in the ocean, and even in the air—and these strands have stories to tell, back at the lab. Here’s how environmental DNA (aka ‘eDNA’) is starting to transform how ecologists work in the Bay Area and beyond.

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Bits of DNA linger on the forest floor, in the ocean, and even in the air—and these strands have stories to tell, back at the lab. Here’s how environmental DNA (aka ‘eDNA’) is starting to transform how ecologists work in the Bay Area and beyond.
Dungeness crabbers finished the season without a single whale entanglement, unlike past years, but they paid a price.
Avian flu is hitting close to home, and it isn’t going anywhere anytime soon. California condors and a beloved San Jose falcon are the newest victims of this epidemic that is sweeping through domestic and wild bird populations worldwide.
Century-old bird nests help scientists time-travel to San Francisco Bay’s lost plant communities.
The Cotoni-Coast Dairies became a unit of the California Coastal National Monument in 2017. Following a two-year planning process, the Cotoni-Coast Dairies monument was slated to open in the fall of 2022. But that deadline has come and gone while the BLM navigates objections to the agency’s plan for public access.
More than a decade ago, Gallardo joined LandPaths, a conservation and environmental education organization based in Santa Rosa. He became manager of a two-acre community garden called Bayer Farm in Santa Rosa’s Roseland. Under Gallardo’s guidance, the garden has flourished as a bridge between worlds.
“What if we were all leaders?” says Hernández, director of programs and partnerships at YES Nature to Neighborhoods, a Richmond-based nonprofit. “Because we all have it. It’s in us. It’s a matter of nurturing it, and polishing it, and putting it out in the world.”
The Dakota Access pipeline. Junípero Serra’s canonization. These issues lit a fuse, urging Alexii Sigona to action.
Weiss’s research on checkerspot butterflies and their habitat has provided the bedrock on which efforts to protect Bay Area lands have been anchored. And he’s helped build out a data network that enables strategic conservation choices.
Researchers are investigating the secrets of our two resident sturgeon species, which have razor-sharp armor and shlorp up clams with their vacuum-shaped mouths.