The Avoca River passing under a stone bridge in the town of Avoca, Co. Wicklow, Ireland. Credit: David Duffy A single scoop of water from an Irish river has revealed evidence not only of Ireland's only frog species—as expected—but also signs of the dreaded B. dendrobatidis fungus, marking the first time this devastating amphibian disease has been spotted in the country and exposing a previously unknown risk to Ireland's frog population. That is the power of environmental DNA (eDNA) as revealed in new research led by University of Florida biologist David Duffy, Ph.D., which traced the DNA harbored by the Avoca River from its origin in the Wicklow Mountains to where it spills into the Irish Sea. The work is published in the journal NAR Genomics and Bioinformatics . Sampling bottles containing Irish mountain stream water, prior to being filtered for DNA.…