New environmental DNA (eDNA) data a game-changer for understanding life in our oceans
Australia’s rich marine biodiversity is about to become more visible, thanks to a groundbreaking new tool.
Developed through a partnership between the Australian Government through Parks Australia, and the Minderoo Foundation, the new OceanOmics eDNA Dashboard combines artificial intelligence with environmental DNA (eDNA) to unlock unprecedented insight into life in our marine parks.
The $11.8 million project – supported by $3.4 million from the Australian Government through Parks Australia’s Ocean Discovery and Restoration program and $8.4 million from the Minderoo Foundation – has delivered one of the largest marine eDNA datasets ever assembled from tropical reefs to samples taken at 6,000m depth.
eDNA involves filtering seawater to collect the ‘genetic breadcrumbs’ (or barcodes) that all species leave behind when they swim through the area. Minderoo’s funding enabled the collection and analysis of over 6,000 samples from remote and hard-to-reach marine parks.

Through the dashboard we can ‘visualise’ the ocean in an entirely new way to gain insights that were unimaginable a few years ago.
The Australian Government’s co-investment in world-leading science helps protect the biodiversity in our marine parks and make evidence-based decisions for the future.
In the Minderoo OceanOmics Centre at The University of Western Australia, over 1.2 billion DNA sequence reads were recovered - each two litre eDNA seawater sample averaging 62 different marine species detections.
In total, over 257,497 marine vertebrate eDNA observations were made spanning 2,019 bony fish species and 95 cartilaginous fish (sharks, rays and chimaeras) species.
The dashboard makes this complex scientific data accessible to everyone through a new AI tool.
Users can search, visualise and interrogate the data using AI – whether you’re a marine scientist, park manager or a student working on a school project.
For example, you can ask the AI tool to search for a list of threatened whale species.
Future iterations will allow users to receive alerts when species of interest are detected, enhancing conservation, education and research efforts nationwide.
The dashboard is available at: https://marine-parks.minderoo.org.

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