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talk · Tuesday 22 September · 16:23–⁠16:30 · ODIN

An eDNA Platform for Community-Powered LA River Restoration

Ryan Martin · Community-Powered, Research-Ready: Citizen Science for a Digital Future

Recording time 7:43:24–7:50:12Open on Vimeo ↗

Summaries and key moments are machine-produced. Check the recording for the speaker’s exact words.

The short versionAn eDNA analysis platform let community groups without bioinformatics expertise measure how river channelization shapes biodiversity.

Overview

What this was about

Ryan Martin describes how community groups, land managers and Indigenous groups monitoring removal of concrete from the heavily channelized Los Angeles River used eDNA metabarcoding (12 sites, seven months, six markers) and the eDNA Explorer platform. The platform handles sequencing processing, taxonomic assignment, GBIF comparisons, seasonal analyses and random-forest community models using about 400 Google Earth Engine variables, showing concrete as a strong predictor of community composition. The work, funded by Metabolic Studio with CALeDNA at UC Santa Cruz, founded eDNA Explorer and now supports ongoing restoration monitoring.

Why it matters. It shows how packaging eDNA workflows makes advanced biodiversity monitoring accessible to communities and restoration projects.

Key ideas

In the room

  • About 95% of the LA River is channelized in concrete following 1930s flood control.
  • Protect Our River (from 2019) brought together community groups, land managers and Indigenous groups.
  • eDNA sampling at 12 sites over seven months with six markers across the tree of life.
  • eDNA detected taxa not in GBIF for the area, e.g. freshwater jellyfish in about a third of samples.
  • Seasonal patterns shown from CO1 marker data.
  • Random forest models on ~400 Earth Engine variables found concrete a strong predictor across most markers.
  • Results support restoration monitoring, a proposed pathogen baseline for the 2028 Olympics, and Indigenous revitalisation efforts; GBIF uploads have just started.
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Notable moments

In their words

Transcript

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Programme abstract

An eDNA Platform for Community-Powered LA River Restoration

Ryan Martin

The Los Angeles River runs roughly 51 miles, confined for nearly its entire length within a concrete flood-control channel. Channelization severed the river from its floodplain, collapsing riparian and wetland habitats and biodiversity. Community organizations including Friends of the LA River and Metabolic Studio have worked to restore the river through cleanup, education, and rewilding segments. Revitalization at this scale requires a way to prioritize effort and measure success, in particular whether biodiversity is returning, and which sites will benefit. Environmental DNA (eDNA), the genetic material organisms shed into air, water, and soil, provides a snapshot of biodiversity across the tree of life from citizen scientist-collected samples, avoiding the time, labor, and specialized expertise that conventional field surveys demand. In collaboration with University of California’s CALeDNA program and community partners supported by Metabolic Studio, we implemented eDNA sampling along the LA River. To make the multi-marker, high-dimensional dataset usable, we built the eDNA Explorer platform. This platform identifies organisms from raw eDNA sequencing data, integrates ~400 remote-sensing geospatial features from Google Earth Engine, and presents results through an intuitive interface that community groups can interpret without bioinformatics expertise. GBIF occurrence data is integrated, allowing users to filter and visualize detections by geographic plausibility. Machine learning models identified environmental and site-level factors most associated with biodiversity outcomes, turning a complex dataset into actionable insights. These tools give community groups a shared evidence base to interpret restoration progress and prioritize future revitalization effort.

Submitted to the conference programme before the talk, so the talk itself may differ.