Great Crested Newt (GCN) eDNA Surveys

"Our innovative partnership with NatureMetrics is more than just a strategic alliance. It's a commitment to harnessing advanced eDNA technologies and global collaboration to drive our sustainability and conservation efforts. It's about utilising our resources wisely and optimising processes to make the best possible decission for our planet's future"

We exceeded our goals, detecting hundreds of additional vertebrate species. Without eDNA and NatureMetrics, we would have been relegated to visual surveys, requiring more field time, and to opportunistic interviews for the other five target species, which are less reliable, auditable, and systematic. The hundreds of other species detections would not have been possible at all.

eDNA has got huge applicability. If we think about early on in the discovery and exploration phase,where our knowledge is limited about the potential biodiversity risk in the area that we might be looking to explore, it’s a critical component to that.

Traditional ecology often capture insufficient data. In contrast, eDNA has facilitated a much better understanding, especially in the case of large deep rivers, allowing for a more comprehensive grasp of the impacts on ecological communities. As a result, appropriate mitigation measures can be implemented

eDNA provides wider ecological datasets that provide us with a tool not only to mitigate any potential impacts from developments but also to evidence the positive ecological impacts that can arise from offshore wind farms in a way we have not been able to do before due to traditional survey method constraints.

EDF Renewables are proud to be a part of this pioneering environmental DNA (eDNA) study with our partners Natural Power and NatureMetrics