As eDNA becomes more accessible, we wanted to explore what barriers remain to community usage of eDNA and what value community scientists saw to eDNA. We reached out to community science projects across the globe and conducted 50 interviews with different stakeholders who are using eDNA as a tool for community science. These interviewees included everyone from people using eDNA in the field for community science projects right now, people planning to use eDNA soon, and people deciding what to do with data collected from community science eDNA projects.

We also introduced a group of community scientists to eDNA tools for the first time, to better understand the challenges and excitement of new users. These community scientists were able to collect eDNA samples, have them processed, and discuss the data—giving us experiential insights to combine with our interview data.