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The Conversation
The Conversation
Environment
Maarten De Brauwer, Research fellow, CSIRO

It sounds like science fiction. But we can now sample water to find the DNA of every species living there

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Figuring out what species live in an ecosystem, and which ones are rare or just good at hiding is an essential way to understand and care for them. Until now, it’s been very labour intensive.

But now we can do it differently. Take a sample from the ocean and match tiny traces of DNA in the water with the species living there.

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