On Jan. 19, 2023, researchers at ETH Zurich and the Swiss Federal research institute WSL announced they had developed a flying device that can land on tree branches to take samples.

Ecologists are increasingly using traces of genetic material left behind by living organisms left behind in the environment, called environmental DNA (eDNA), to catalogue and monitor biodiversity. The drone, equipped with adhesive strips, lands on a branch, material from the branch sticks to these strips. Researchers can then extract DNA in the lab, analyse it and assign it to genetic matches of the various organisms using database comparisons.

Researchers have tested their new device on seven tree species. In the samples, they found DNA from 21 distinct groups of organisms, or taxa, including birds, mammals and insects. The study was published in the journal Science Robotics.