Embracing Environmental DNA ( eDNA ): Trust, Skepticism, and Competence in an Emerging Method

ABSTRACT

Environmental DNA (eDNA) detection has emerged as a transformative tool for biodiversity monitoring, yet its adoption remains uneven across scientific, management, and policy communities. While existing literature focuses predominantly on technical validation, the social dimensions of eDNA trust and skepticism remain underexplored. This study presents findings from a structured online survey of 476 respondents spanning 33 countries and varying levels of eDNA familiarity. It examines how validity, usefulness, and trustworthiness of eDNA as evidence are perceived and vary with experience. Respondents were grouped by experience: those unfamiliar with eDNA (Group 1, n  = 18), those familiar but without direct use (Group 2, n  = 178), and active eDNA users (Group 3, n  = 280). Quantitative ratings of perceived validity and usefulness increased monotonically with experience, while qualitative coding of open‐ended responses revealed that skepticism becomes more nuanced—not more intense—as experience grows. Drawing on social studies of science, we interpret these patterns as characteristic of how scientific communities come to trust emerging methods. Our central finding is that trust in eDNA is fundamentally relational: the competence of the practitioner is inseparable from the credibility of the method. The primary barrier to broader eDNA adoption is therefore not skepticism, but the absence of a legible, trusted community of practice. Expanding responsible adoption requires not only technical standardization but deliberate investment in practitioner literacy, transparent communication of methodological limitations, and attention to the relational contexts in which eDNA evidence is produced and evaluated.