Recognizing false positives: synthetic oligonucleotide controls for environme…

1. EnvironmentalDNA(eDNA) is increasingly used for surveillance and detection of species of interest in aquatic and soil samples. 2. A significant risk associated with eDNAmethods is potential false-positive results due to laboratory contamination. 3. To minimize and quantify this risk, we designed and validated a set of synthetic oligonucleotides for use as species-specific positive PCR co…