Date: October 22, 2026
Beijing, China: Traditional ecological biomonitoring mostly captures discrete snapshots of ecosystem conditions, offering limited capacity to track ongoing ecological change. A recent comprehensive review published in Biological Diversity highlights that environmental nucleic acids (eNA), encompassing environmental DNA (eDNA) and environmental RNA (eRNA), provide a powerful toolbox for reconstructing multidimensional ecological trajectories.
eNA signals are temporally integrated outputs shaped by biological release, molecular properties, environmental transport‑retention and laboratory analytical procedures. Not mere instantaneous ecological readings, their temporal responsiveness and retention jointly define what historical biological information can be retrieved. With proper ecological validation, calibrated eNA observations can characterize taxonomic, demographic, physiological and functional dimensions of ecological state. Repeated complementary sampling further enables researchers to resolve core trajectory attributes: change direction and magnitude, rate and timing, intermediate pathways, as well as patterns of progression, stabilization and recovery.
Nevertheless, inferring underlying ecological processes remains technically demanding. Identical molecular signatures may stem from distinct ecological drivers, requiring complementary datasets, mechanistic or state‑space models, alongside explicit handling of identifiability and uncertainty.
Moving beyond pure academic inference, trajectory‑oriented eNA monitoring delivers decision‑ready outputs for real‑world scenarios including biological invasion control, ecological disturbance response, species conservation and ecosystem restoration. Instead of relying on isolated measurements, managers can judge whether to maintain surveillance, launch intervention or adjust existing actions according to complete change trajectories.
The authors point out key future research priorities. Researchers need better‑calibrated target‑specific temporal response functions, non‑redundant multi‑marker observation combinations, and dynamic reference regimes. Ultimately, the field aims to advance eNA biomonitoring from retrospective reconstruction toward forecasting and adaptive decision‑making. This paradigm shift offers great promise for evidence‑based environmental governance.
Original Source
W. Xiong, and A. Zhan, "From Ecological States to Trajectories: Revealing Ecological Dynamics Through Environmental Nucleic Acids," Biological Diversity (2026): 1–20, https://doi.org/10.1002/bod2.70040.
Keywords
adaptive management, ecological biomonitoring, ecological dynamics, environmental DNA (eDNA), environmental RNA (eRNA), trajectory inference
About the Author
Wei Xiong (First Author), Ph.D. in Science, Associate Professor at the Research Center for Eco‑Environmental Sciences, Chinese Academy of Sciences. Her main research focuses on the mechanisms of ecological effects of water pollution based on environmental DNA approaches.
Aibin Zhan (Corresponding Author), Ph.D. in Science, Professor at the Research Center for Eco‑Environmental Sciences, Chinese Academy of Sciences. His research interests cover invasion biology and pollution ecology of aquatic ecosystems.
About the Journal
Biological Diversity (ISSN: 2994-4139) is a peer-reviewed, international, open-access journal sponsored by the South China Botanical Garden, Chinese Academy of Sciences ((SCBG, CAS), and published in partnership with John Wiley & Sons Australia, Ltd. It is dedicated to advancing biodiversity conservation, safeguarding ecosystem functions and services, and promoting the sustainable utilization of biological resources under global environmental change. The journal welcomes original research, reviews, commentaries, and short communications across a broad spectrum of disciplines, including botany, zoology, microbiology, taxonomy, phylogenetics, genomics, cytology, ecology, climatology, economics, sociology, and real-time policy theory. The journal is indexed in Chemical Abstracts Service (CAS) and Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ).
