Detecting a vast diversity of rainforest animals by swabbing their DNA from leaves

In a new study, an international research team has shown that cotton swabs, which we all got to know so intimately during the COVID-19 pandemic, are a valuable tool to map biodiversity. The team was led by scientists at the Helmholtz Institute for One Health (HIOH) in Greifswald, a site of the Helmholtz Center for Infection Research (HZI) in Braunschweig, Germany.