Dear Colleagues,

The Diversity journal is launching a Special Issue dedicated to using eDNA as a tool for biomonitoring. Biomonitoring, or determining the consequences of pollution on ecosystem health through the presence of tolerant or the absence of sensitive species, is an important tool to quantify and minimize anthropogenic impacts on the natural environment. Past and current regulatory practices rely mainly on traditional sampling techniques and morphological identification to determine those sensitive or tolerant species. However, developments in molecular identification techniques are slowly catching up. Their promise of species-specific, fast, cheap, and continuous monitoring techniques has kept track with the development and explosion of sequencing techniques, from single-specimen barcoding to tissue metabarcoding of bulk samples to eDNA metabarcoding of short sequences from environmental samples. eDNA especially promises to detect cryptic taxa or life stages with greater sensitivity and is not hindered by specimen damage issues. However, there is still a need to compare, for instance, biotic indices obtained from conventional sampling to eDNA, whether this is dependent on the type of environment sampled, the origin and fate of sequences in the environment, methodological and bioinformatic standardizations. In this Special Issue, we invite submissions of research that address these and other issues related to the application of eDNA techniques to biomonitoring studies.

Prof. Dr. Karl Cottenie
Guest Editor

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Diversity is an international peer-reviewed open access monthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2600 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

• Biomonitoring 
• eDNA 
• Bioinformatics 
• Molecular identification 
• Conservation 
• Species richness