About DNA Divers
DNA Divers is a community science project that involves scuba divers who want to find scientific answers to questions about marine life at their favourite dive sites. DNA Divers is associated with the SpongeDNA Project, and funded by the Research England Policy-Impact Fund.
What We Do
We connect scuba divers from across the UK who are interested in investigating which marine life frequent their favourite dive sites.
Who We Are
DNA Divers is coordinated by Erika Neave, a marine biodiversity researcher and recreational diver herself, and is supported by a team of marine biologists based in Liverpool, UK at Liverpool John Moores University. Erika wanted to make it easier for scuba divers to harness their hobbies to assist marine conservation research. By using DNA sequencing technology, divers do not have to complete any training to participate in a DNA Divers dive!
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Our volunteers are seasoned scuba divers from across the UK and truly have the best perspective of UK marine biodiversity. Using this perspective, they decide what questions they would like to ask about their favourite dive sites (with plenty of help from our team of course!). DNA divers then coordinates dives so that divers can collect the appropriate samples to answer their questions. The samples are passed on to the marine biology team in Liverpool, and answers are shared amongst the DNA divers community.
Together we are exploring scientific answers to the following question: where are the best dive sites in the UK?
