Hello and welcome!
I'm Dr. James Garner, an aquatic ecologist who develops and applies environmental DNA (eDNA) methods to advance how we monitor, understand, and manage freshwater and marine ecosystems.
Here you'll find more about my research, environmental DNA, media coverage of my work, my CV, and some of my favorite fish photography.
My professional life grew out of an observation I made many years ago while working at a small non-profit focused on environmental restoration: to meaningfully conserve, restore, and protect ecosystems (and the beings that live within them) we must first have reliable ways to understand how those systems function. Without actionable, trustworthy data, we cannot define ecological baselines, nor can we evaluate the consequences of the actions we take to alter them. I work with natural resource managers and restoration practitioners to collect this data using a tool called environmental DNA (for more, see eDNA tab).
I design my research in close partnership with the people who will use it: state and federal agencies, Tribal nations, NGOs, and community organizations, so that results translate directly into conservation action. Whether it's establishing biodiversity baselines to inform a dam removal, detecting rare and endangered species for the first time in an ecosystem, calibrating eDNA with traditional fish counts to strengthen management decisions, or tracking community change across entire watersheds to guide restoration planning, the goal is always the same: science that's immediately usable by the people doing the work on the ground. Current and past partners include USGS, NOAA, Massachusetts Division of Marine Fisheries, the Connecticut River Conservancy, Norcross Wildlife Foundation, Mass Audubon, the Wampanoag Tribe of Gay Head (Aquinnah), the Herring Pond Wampanoag Tribe, Native Land Conservancy, UMass Amherst, and many others.