Air quality monitoring stations are unintentionally capturing large amounts of airborne DNA from animals and plants helping scientists track biodiversity, BBC Future Planet reports, citing a paper (pdf) published in Current Biology. Scientists have been able to extract airborne DNA from air quality monitoring stations’ filters in the form of skin cells, saliva, hair, and feces. The paper looked at data collected from air quality filters in Scotland and London in 2021 and 2022, and collected environmental DNA from more than 180 different plants, fungi, insects, mammals, and amphibians.

Why is this important? Air monitoring infrastructure “may represent a tremendous opportunity to collect high resolution biodiversity data on national scales,” the study concluded, adding that it can allow scientists to analyze changes in species “on geographical and temporal scales … unforeseen until recently.”

Some unique benefits: Air quality stations around the world collect data on a daily or weekly basis in a highly regulated and standardized way, which is “unheard of in biodiversity science,” lead author of the study Elizabeth Clare explained. Traditional biodiversity monitoring methods — which involve setting up camera traps or tracking footprints — are often more resource-intensive and expensive than air quality monitoring, Clare adds.

But it can’t capture everything: While the consistency in data collection helps scientists analyze changes given the access to a “complete picture of what is happening in the area,” these stations are often not operational in biodiverse places, associate professor at the University of Gothenburg in Sweden Matthias Obst points out. Additionally, there is likely to be a much higher rate of false positives than in the case of conventional methods.