This NPWS funded research project (2023-2024) is led by ATU Galway City. The multi-disciplinary team are gathering and assessing baseline data on unmonitored lakes and pools within Nephin Forest, located within Wild Nephin National Park. The team will determine a baseline list of biological communities, comprising aquatic and semi-aquatic plants, invertebrates and vertebrates of dystrophic lakes and pools within Nephin Forest using an indirect ecological monitoring technique – environmental DNA (eDNA). Recommendations will establish community composition of dystrophic lakes and pools and where possible to determine the presence of rare and threatened aquatic species or species of conservation concern inhabiting dystrophic lakes and pools within Nephin Forest.
