Because all living things leave genetic traces in their environments, samples of water, soil, or air are vast storehouses of biological information in the form of environmental DNA (eDNA). SMEA professor Ryan Kelly has worked for more than a decade to make this potential goldmine of information useful for environmental management, making it possible to measure and monitor biodiversity at unprecedented resolution and scale.

Within Puget Sound, Dr. Kelly and colleagues have used eDNA to count endangered salmon (Shelton et al. 2019), map different harmful algal species across space and time (Jacobs-Palmer et al. 2021), track the invasion front of the European Green Crab (Keller et al. 2022), and measure the effectiveness of culvert replacement in salmon-bearing streams (Allan et al. 2023). Bigger-picture examples include assessing the effect of urbanization on nearshore ecosystems (Kelly et al. 2016), predicting ecological shifts in plankton as a consequence of ocean warming and acidification (Gallego et al. 2020), and generating three-dimensional maps of hake, a commercially valuable fish species, along the US west coast (Shelton et al. 2022). Kelly is currently working with many colleagues on a project with the Office of Naval Research to map marine mammals at the same spatial scale.

In 2021, Kelly sought and received funding from the David and Lucile Packard Foundation to start the eDNA Collaborative within SMEA. With Eily Allan (Chief Scientist and Acting Instructor at SMEA) and Cara Sucher (Program Manager), Kelly works to move eDNA tools out of the lab and into routine practice around the world. To date, the Collaborative has awarded 130 microgrants of support to researchers in more than 40 countries, helping to reduce barriers and increase access to eDNA tools and information.

The scope of eDNA analysis has begun to get serious attention at the federal level, and after leading a multi-author publication calling for a national strategy on eDNA (Kelly et al. 2023), Kelly has been helping to advise a task force of the White House’s Office of Science & Technology Policy doing just that. The aim is to harmonize efforts across more than a dozen federal agencies engaged in natural-resources management, ensuring that the best available scientific tools are available for public benefit.

Throughout these adventures in science and policy, Kelly has been lucky to work with SMEA colleagues, postdocs, and students. Professor Dave Fluharty, for example, hosted Kelly at a meeting of a NOAA advisory committee on genetic technologies, Professor Terrie Klinger has been a frequent coauthor and collaborator via the Washington Ocean Acidification Center (and most recently on a book about tidepool ecology), and Affiliate Professor Eric Laschever has led law and policy papers with Kelly and longtime SMEA supporter Kai Lee in 2022 and 2023. SMEA graduate students and postdocs have authored or co-authored dozens of publications with Kelly over the past decade.