GenePools
This project has now closed. Thank you to all who took part.
GenePools was a three-year project that investigated the hidden and invisible life within ponds in urban areas, and their benefit to the environment, using novel DNA sequencing methods.
Community scientists surveyed their pond and sent in samples of the pond water. They then received a detailed report of what the DNA analysis had found living in their pond.
GenePools was a partnership between Natural England, Cefas, the Joint Nature Conservation Committee and the Natural History Museum.
At a glance
Investigated hidden pond life.
Type of activity: Outdoor sampling of a pond and an online survey.
Who can took part? People who had permission and access to an enclosed pond in one of six cities: Plymouth, Bristol, London, Cambridge, Newcastle and Manchester.
When? April - July 2024.
Where? Any enclosed pond that they had permission to sample.
How long will it take? Sampling took about 15-20 minutes. Online forms, up to 20 minutes to fill in.
Results from 2024
In 2024, the third and final year of the project:
- 650 community scientists took part
- 362 ponds were sampled
- 1,337 different species were detected (plus many more sequence types that could not be assigned at species level)
Highlights
10%
of ponds contained fox DNA
53%
of ponds contained common frog DNA
14%
of ponds contained pond snail DNA
16%
of ponds contained earthworm DNA
8.5%
of ponds contained Phantom midge Chaoborus flavicans DNA
32%
of ponds contained waterlilly DNA
Read the full report
Dive into the data to see what was discovered.
Take part in other freshwater community science projects
If you are interested in protecting the health of UK waterways, here are some projects you could join:
- Water quality monitoring - The Riverfly Partnership
- Water quality monitoring - FreshWater Watch
- River health and restoration - The Rivers Trust
- Great crested newts PondNet eDNA surveys - Freshwater Habitats Trust
- Mapping blue-green algae - UK Centre for Ecology & Hydrology
- Priority Pond Assessment - Freshwater Habitats Trust
More information about ponds and eDNA
‘Garden ponds are an important and unique part of the urban ecosystem, but scientists like me rarely have the opportunity to study them. I’m interested in how new technologies like sequencing the DNA in pond water can provide information about the functioning and health of aquatic habitats.’
David Bass
Cefas, lead researcher in the GenePools team
Video explainers and online ID guides
Watch the video below for an overview of environmental DNA (eDNA) or read our article.
Natural History Museum resources
Freshwater Trust resources
Project partners
Project team and contacts
- Lucy Robinson - Citizen Science Manager
- Jessica Wardlaw - Citizen Science Programme Developer
- Giuliana Sinclair, Community Science Officer
- Katy Potts - Biodiversity officer
If you have any queries, please contact the Community Science team at [email protected] with 'GenePools' in your subject line.
