In light of the global biodiversity crisis, designated protected areas (PAs) have an increasingly important role in providing refuge for plant and animal species and halting the ongoing sixth mass extinction (Ceballos et al., 2015). In order to comprehensively detect changes in species diversity and respond with optimally planned management of specific PAs, the acquisition of precise data on the status of protected species and respective habitats is necessary (Visconti et al., 2020). This can be achieved by successful biodiversity monitoring that is regular, targeted, and unbiased so it objectively characterizes the condition of the target object. However, monitoring programs in PAs are often far from optimal. The main reasons for this problem are the sheer number and size of PAs (Watson et al., 2014) and a lack of regular and adequate funding for monitoring activities accompanied by the lack of personnel trained to perform biodiversity monitoring. Therefore, implementing approaches enabling effective biodiversity monitoring is essential to track changes in species diversity and ecosystem functioning in the times of biodiversity crisis (WWF, 2020) and the main focus of the proposed ProTecteDNA project.

The main bottleneck addressed in this project proposal is the need for a standardized monitoring technique that would enable the comprehensive and efficient determination of biodiversity in PAs. Conventional biodiversity monitoring methods, such as bulk sample collection and morphological species identification, are in a general reliable and established source of data on species occurrence, abundance, and behavior. Yet, they often prove inefficient in sampling resolution (spatially and temporally) and in comprehensive and efficient processing of collected material. For instance, a sample needs to be collected by trained technicians, divided by taxonomic group and then analyzed by respective taxonomic experts to provide final species lists (Karlson et al., 2020).

Due to this time-intensive protocol, many already collected samples and fractions remain undetermined, which is particularly alarming as it can significantly alter or delay data-based mitigation responses. Thus, the application of novel approaches is key to support traditional biodiversity monitoring efforts and enable monitoring in places without the possibility of efficient implementation of traditional monitoring methods. ProTecteDNA aims at developing and implementing novel environmental DNA (eDNA) based methods for biodiversity assessment in PAs that are efficient, standardized, scalable, and affordable and can therefore be broadly implemented in different PAs.