PKD monitoring in Switzerland has been very time-consuming and expensive ever since and sacrificed thousands of fish so far. Thus, even if it is reliable, this method needs an urgent replacement due to animal welfare issues.
The fast-growing and relatively new field of environmental DNA (eDNA) offers some methods to detect water-borne diseases such as PKD in a non-invasive, cheap and fast manner.
Within this project, in a first step, some promising materials and methods will be compared with each other under field conditions.
In a second step the former established and proved protocol will be applied in six Swiss rivers during an entire year to find the best time for a future non-invasive monitoring program.
Contact: Moritz Stelzer; Nico Christener; PD, Dr. med. vet. Heike Schmidt-Posthaus
