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Environmental DNA (eDNA) analysis is an emerging tool with significant potential to advance biomonitoring, particularly in remote and logistically challenging environments. To evaluate the state of eDNA research in Alaska, we conducted a literature review and a regional survey. The review identified 22 peer-reviewed studies published between 2010 and 2025, while the survey of 54 individuals representing state, federal, academic, tribal, and nonprofit organizations (46 responses) captured information on ongoing and unpublished projects. Our literature review and survey results reveal that most published and ongoing studies in Alaska employ eDNA metabarcoding to assess community assemblages, species distributions, and biodiversity patterns. However, respondents reported several barriers to implementation, including limited funding, infrastructure, and assay availability, as well as uncertainty in laboratory selection, sampling protocols, and data analysis. Despite these challenges, cross-sector collaborations are developing. Within the growing effort to harness eDNA as a management tool, collaborations with subsistence harvesters are in the forefront of using eDNA for management purposes. This study provides the first comprehensive overview of eDNA research in Alaska, identifies key data gaps, and offers examples of co-production of knowledge currently underway in the state. Frameworks developed in Alaska may inform the advancement of remote biomonitoring programs globally. 

Seascape genomics provides a powerful framework to evaluate the presence and strength of environmental pressures on marine organisms, as well as to forecast long term species stability under various perturbations. In the highly productive North Pacific, forage fishes, key trophic links across ecosystems, are also contending with a rapidly warming climate and a litany of associated oceanographic changes (e.g., changes in salinity, dissolved oxygen, pH, primary production, etc.). These changes can place substantial selective pressures on populations over space and time. While several population genomics studies have targeted forage fishes in the North Pacific, none have formally analyzed the interactions between genotype and environment. However, when population genomics studies provide collection location information and other critical data, it is possible to supplement a published genomic dataset with environmental data from existing public databases and perform “post hocseascape genomics” analyses. In reviewing the literature, we find pertinent metadata (dates and locations of sample collection) are rarely provided. We identify specific factors that may impede the application of seascape genomics methods in the North Pacific. Finally, we present an approach for supplementing data in a reproducible way to allow forpost hocseascape genomics analysis, in instances when metadata are reported. Overall, our goal is to demonstrate – via literature review – the utility and importance of seascape genomics to understanding the long term health of forage fish species in the North Pacific.