What costs are associated with the lab processing and how do overall costs of these type of surveys compare with conventional surveys, for example fish nettings?
Analysis of an eDNA sample costs £275 + VAT and we provide discounts for conservation NGOs and researchers. This includes the sampling kit and full laboratory analysis with QC testing and reporting. Electrofishing is an order of magnitude more expensive and often detects fewer species than a single eDNA sample (small, bottom-dwelling fish such as bullheads and sticklebacks are routinely missed by electrofishing). Cost comparison with netting depends very much on what kind of boat you would need to use for the netting and whether you were in an environment where you could collect eDNA samples from the shoreline (e.g. in a lake). Because eDNA is more sensitive for fish surveys than netting is, even if you have to use a boat to collect the eDNA samples, you will need less field effort to capture the same amount of data (see Hänfling et al., 2019 for comparison of catch per unit effort in Lake Windermere).
