Last year, working with The Nature Conservancy under a cooperative agreement funded by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, the team of researchers used the eDNA technique to discover just how close highly invasive bighead and silver carp were getting to Lake Michigan.

"Critics have questioned whether our research can be trusted, but now that our work has been thoroughly reviewed and published in a scientific journal, hopefully the debate can shift from questioning the science to focusing on policy and management solutions," said Lindsay Chadderton, The Nature Conservancy's Director for Aquatic Invasive Species, and a co-author of the paper.

In particular, the scientists were trying to discover if the two species of Asian carp (bighead and silver) had made it past a pair of underwater electronic barriers designed to keep exotic invasive species from moving between the Great Lakes and Mississippi River watersheds. The team of researchers, which included scientists from The Nature Conservancy and Notre Dame, soon discovered genetic material from Asian carp in several sections of the Chicago-area waterway system. Many of the detection points suggested that Asian carp were much closer to Lake Michigan than authorities had previously believed. Some carp eDNA was found in Calumet Harbor, a near-shore area of Lake Michigan itself, many miles beyond the electronic underwater barrier.