Figure Legend
Figure 1. Experimental design for testing passive eDNA collection with nine different membrane materials in a controlled mesocosm setting with varying soak times.
Figure 2. Mean Cq values from quantitative PCR by membrane material compared to conventional filtration of 1L eDNA samples. Note that both cotton and hemp were place inside nylon bags. Lower Cq values indicate higher DNA yield and different letters indicate statistical significance (α=0.05).
Figure 3. Mean Cq values from quantitative PCR by submersion time for each membrane material. Open circles represent data for nylon bags (used with both cotton and hemp) which were sampled only at the end of the experiment. A smoothing spline (dashed line) is used to visualize possible time trends and could not be fitted for electrospun nanofibers due to the small sample size.
Figure 4. The number of fish species detected by membrane material compared to conventional filtration of 1L eDNA samples. Note that both cotton and hemp were place inside nylon bags. Different letters indicate statistical significance (α=0.05).
Figure 5. The number of fish species detected by submersion time and membrane material. Open circles represent data for nylon bags (used with both cotton and hemp) which were sampled only at the end of the experiment. A smoothing spline (dashed line) is used to visualize possible time trends and could not be fitted for electrospun nanofibers due to the small sample size.
Figure 6. Scanning electron microscopy images of materials at 5000 x magnification after submersion in tank water where dashed circles identify biological matter. All scale bars are 10 µm.
Table 1. Materials trialled for passive eDNA collection accompanied by scanning electron microscopy pictures of each material at 10,000 x (Cellulose) and 100 x (all other materials) magnification, inlaid with pictures of the materials prior to deployment.