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Magazine
Figure 1. Neuromagic: exploring the syn-
ergetic links between magic and cognitive
neuroscience.
of his hands, what he is looking at, and
so on. This way, seemingly casually he
may bias your attention, force a decision
you are convinced you took freely, or
even make you believe you witnessed
something that never happened. All
these feats are much more interesting
than unveiling a specific sleight of hands.
So, rather than seeking to understand
how a magician did a particular trick,
you could delve into all the painstaking
effort he put into making it work. This is
exactly what you will find in the superb
new book The Illusionist Brain: The
Neuroscience of Magic by Cami and
Martinez, two seasoned scientists and
magic connoisseurs. If you read their
book, you will not learn a single magic
trick, but you will discover the theoretical
foundations supporting them all. And the
foundations of the art of deceiving are, to
a large extent, plain neuroscience.
“Wake up, Neo…” reads the message
on Neo’s computer screen that lead him
to meet Morpheus and find out about
“The Matrix”. It is a sci-fi movie but the
idea of the matrix is deeply rooted in
philosophy, going from the notion of a
brain in a vat, to Descartes’ demon and
all the way back to Plato’s allegory of the
cave (see chapter 4 in Quian Quiroga2).
We don’t live in pods filled with a viscous
liquid and cables stimulating our senses
(at least we think we don’t), but the
matrix provides a fascinating metaphor
of how the brain works. All what we see,
feel and remember is a construction, not
by an architect, an artificial intelligence
or an evil genius, but simply by the
activity of our neurons. We believe
R1250 Current Biology 32, R1245–R1261, November 21, 2022 © 2022 Elsevier Inc.
we see everything in front of us with
excruciating detail but we do not; we feel
we remember our past like as in a movie
but we do not do that either. Our brain
constructs a matrix, our reality.
Both perception and memory rely
on processing very little information
and filling gaps making unconscious
inferences based on previous
experiences. In this matrix created
by our brain, magicians are like Neo,
mastering their metier and fooling
these assumptions to make us
experience what we cannot conceive
or understand3. Hardly anybody knows
more about attention and misdirection
than an experienced magician, and I am
not referring to textbook knowledge,
but to how it actually works, in real life.
But magicians are typically not aware
of how far the rabbit’s hole goes and
how their mostly intuitive and pragmatic
knowledge is based on cognitive
neuroscience principles — how we see,
pay attention, decide or remember.
Cami and Martinez act like Morpheus,
explaining in simple terms, and with
compelling examples, the intricate
workings of the matrix in our brain. In
their book, magic acts as a trigger to
learn neuroscience principles that are
presented through a fascinating and
refreshing viewpoint, and that should
also be interesting to the lay reader not
acquainted with the sorcerers’ guild.
If, like me, you are a cognitive
neuroscientist, just imagine coming
up with a behavioural experiment that
always works — 100% of the time and in
every single subject. That’s what a magic
trick does. It doesn’t just apply to a
statistically significant number of people
in the audience; it works for everybody.
In this regard, the book of Cami and
Martinez lays out the foundations of how
this is done, and offers the most up to
date and comprehensive introduction
to the emerging field of ‘Neuromagic’
(Figure 1).
REFERENCES
1. Tamariz, J. (2014). The Magic Way (Seattle:
Hermetic Press).
2. Quian Quiroga, R. (2020). Neuroscience Fiction
(Dallas, TX: BenBella Books).
3. Quian Quiroga, R. (2016). Magic and cognitive
neuroscience. Curr. Biol. 26, R390–R394.
Centre for Systems Neuroscience, University
of Leicester, 15 Lancaster Road, Leicester
LE1 7HA, UK.
E-mail: rqqg1@le.ac.uk
Quick guide
Environmental DNA
Emilie A. Didaskalou*, Krijn B. Trimbos
and Kathryn A. Stewart
What is eDNA? Environmental
DNA (eDNA) is the genetic material
present in an environmental sample
(Figure 1A). When organisms interact
with their environment, they leave
behind genetic traces in the form
of extracellular (free-floating) or
intracellular (within cells, mitochondria
or chloroplasts) DNA. These
genetic traces are released into the
environment in many ways, and to be
honest some can be quite disgusting:
skin, mucus, saliva, sperm, secretions,
eggs, faeces, urine, blood, root,
leaves, fruit, pollen, rotting bodies
and even whole organisms (e.g.,
microbes).
OK, but what is an environmental
sample? In the strictest sense,
environmental samples consist
of water, soil, sediment, snow,
permafrost, or air. But in a broader
sense, eDNA samples can also come
from faeces, feeding traces, spider
webs, honey, flowers or surfaces.
What do you measure with eDNA?
Remember the tricorder from the
original Star Trek series? When landing
parties from the starship Enterprise
would scout unfamiliar areas and
use this futuristic device to perform
a bioscan of their new surroundings?
Well, eDNA comes pretty close! It can
measure the presence or absence
of a target species, the species
composition of your sample and the
relative abundance or biomass of
species in that sample.
How do you measure it? First, one
must collect the samples. Sampling
can either be done by direct collection
(e.g., some water, soil), by actively
filtering samples (water or air) across
a membrane, or passively filtering
by simply placing filters within the
environment to collect DNA. Once
the samples are retrieved, the next
step is to extract the DNA using the
appropriate protocol that provides
you with the highest DNA yield while
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removing enzymes and chemicals A

that might mess up your downstream
analysis. The rest of the workflow
is based on PCR (polymerase chain
reaction) amplification, which boosts
your DNA signal so that you can
detect it. This ranges from quantitative
PCR if you are interested in the
presence or absence of a specific
species, or preparing your samples for
a sequencing run, which can reveal
the species composition within the
clades of your interest, also known as
‘DNA metabarcoding’.

Why is eDNA such a cool tool

to use? Traditional methods of
monitoring biodiversity are mainly
observational. So, aside from obvious B Presence/Absence Species interactions
drawbacks such as identification
bias, and the sometimes-destructive
nature of sampling, traditional
methods also require a high level of
taxonomic expertise which is often
lacking. Plus, identification is usually
time and labour intensive, making Community structure
it costly. On the other hand, eDNA
has been shown to overcome these
hurdles, as samples can be collected
in a non-destructive manner and with
relative ease, and analysis mostly C Origin State
Intracellular
requires only basic laboratory skills.
In fact, methods like metabarcoding
allow you to analyze many samples
or species simultaneously and as
the price of sequencing continues to
decline exponentially, eDNA makes Extracellular
a quick and cost-effective tool
that can be used in a standardized
manner. As a result you can take more
samples in space and time and get a
much better grasp of the species or Fate Transport
community in a location. Likewise,
eDNA’s persistence in the environment Horizontal
varies from hours to weeks in aquatic
environments and from months to
hundreds of thousands of years in
soil and sediment, which allows for
detection of species in the present
and the past. Finally, DNA approaches
pH
have also been proven to be more Vertical
sensitive and can detect elusive
and endangered species, along with Current Biology
species that are difficult to identify or
locate (unreachable habitats). Figure 1. eDNA — applications and ecology.
(A) What is eDNA and where does it come from? (B) eDNA applications. (C) The ecology of eDNA.
What is it used for? Due to its eDNA release by the organism can depend on size or life stage (origin). Similarly, its persistence can
be affected by the form in which eDNA exists in the environment (state) or by the environmental
many advantages, eDNA is used in a
conditions: temperature, UV exposure, pH and microbial activity (fate). Knowledge on how eDNA can
wide range of applications including be transported is also important to determine whether the species detected occurred close to, or far
ancient ecosystem reconstruction, away from, the sampling site and whether they occured in the past or present (transport). Created by
diet analysis, plant–pollinator Emilie A. Didaskalou with BioRender.com.

Current Biology 32, R1245–R1261, November 21, 2022 R1251

 ll
interactions and air quality monitoring.
By surveying species across different
habitats and taxonomic groups, eDNA
is used to retrieve information on
the community structure of poorly
studied habitats, to extend taxonomic
resolution or diversity estimates of
past studies, and to document how
communities shift through time in
response to environmental change,
pollution, or restoration efforts. Owing
to its success in detecting species
in low concentrations, eDNA is often
used to keep track of the spread of
harmful invasive species or to identify
habitats of critical importance to
endangered and otherwise difficult to
detect species. Lastly, thanks to the
user-friendly sampling method, eDNA
is now also popular in citizen science
and education (Figure 1B).
What are its limitations? As cool
as it sounds, eDNA is not flawless.
One of its main limitations is the
current difficulty in obtaining specific
information beyond the level of
taxonomy, such as age, sex, and size.
The interpretation of obtained data
also requires a deeper understanding
of the ecology of eDNA (where it
comes from — origin; it’s physical
properties in the environment — state;
how and where it persists — fate
and how it’s transported) (Figure 1C).
Importantly, different practises can
influence eDNA detection, and thus
laboratory and field protocols often
need to be standardised for different
species or environments. Likewise, for
various and quite complicated reasons
that would turn this into a slow guide,
false positives (DNA is recovered
but the species isn’t present) and
false negatives (species are present
but DNA remains undetected) can
be introduced into the data during
sampling and subsequent analysis.
Just to give an example, incomplete
DNA reference databases (consisting
of unique DNA sequences and their
species identification) can influence
results enormously. Yet, certain
limitations can be overcome during
experimental design and bioinformatic
approaches.
What is the future of eDNA
research? It is well known that
biodiversity is declining worldwide,
and human impacts are altering our
R1252 Current Biology 32, R1245–R1261, November 21, 2022 Published by Elsevier Inc.
natural world at rates that are difficult
to monitor with traditional methods.
What we are experiencing now is
that eDNA could supplement, and
sometimes even replace, traditional
monitoring methods that are currently
used to inform species and ecosystem
management decisions. Filling in
the knowledge gaps concerning
the ecology of eDNA and further
optimizing or resolving technical
and methodological limitations
(e.g., completing our DNA reference
databases, limiting false positives and
negatives) are the most important next
steps. These will allow us to improve
data interpretation and expand
its potential to other applications
(e.g., population or functional
genetics). Ultimately, technological
advancements (like Nanopore’s
portable real-time sequencer), and the
prospect of making eDNA biodiversity
data globally accessible, make it a
very promising tool for successfully
assessing conservation priorities and
biosecurity risk.
Where can I find out more?
Barnes, M.A., and Turner, C.R. (2016). The ecology
of environmental DNA and implications for
conservation genetics. Conserv. Genet. 17,
1–17.
Berry, O., Jarman, S., Bissett, A., Hope, M.,
Paeper, C., Bessey, C., Schwartz, M.K., Hale,
J. and Bunce, M. (2021). Making environmental
DNA (eDNA) biodiversity records globally
accessible. Environ. DNA 3, 699–705.
Bohmann, K., Evans, A., Gilbert, M.T., Carvalho,
G.R., Creer, S., Knapp, M., Yu, D.W. and de
Bruyn, M. (2014). Environmental DNA for
wildlife biology and biodiversity monitoring.
Trends Ecol. Evol. 29, 358–367.
Cristescu, M.E. and Hebert, P.D.N. (2018).
Uses and misuses of environmental DNA in
biodiversity, science and conservation. Annu.
Rev. Ecol. Evol. Syst. 49, 209–230.
Deiner, K., Bik, H.M., Mächler, E., Seymour, M.,
Lacoursière-Roussel, A., Altermatt, F., Creer,
S., Bista, I., Lodge, D.M., de Vere, N. et al.
(2017). Environmental DNA metabarcoding:
Transforming how we survey animal and plant
communities. Mol. Ecol. 26, 5872–5895.
Ruppert, K.M., Kline, R.J., Rahman, M.S. (2019).
Past, present, and future perspectives of
environmental DNA (eDNA) metabarcoding:
A systematic review in methods, monitoring,
and applications of global eDNA. Glob. Ecol.
Conserv. 17, e00547.
Stewart, K.A. (2019). Understanding the effects of
biotic and abiotic factors on sources of aquatic
environmental DNA. Biodivers. Conserv. 28,
983–1001.
Taberlet, P., Bonin, A., Zinger, L., and Coissac, E.
(2018). Environmental DNA: For Biodiversity
Research and Monitoring (Oxford: Oxford
University Press).
Department of Environmental Biology,
Institute of Environmental Sciences, Leiden
University, Leiden, Netherlands.
*E-mail: e.a.didaskalou@cml.leidenuniv.nl
Magazine
Primer
Roost making in
bats
Rachel A. Page1,*
and Dina K.N. Dechmann1,2,3,4
Structures created by animals can
serve many purposes. Spiders weave
intricate webs to trap prey; beavers
engineer complex networks of dams
to alter waterways; male bower birds
construct and decorate elaborate
bowers to attract mates. Animal
architecture ranges widely in function,
but by far the most common use is
shelter. Animals can spend a large
amount of time in their shelters, and
this is often where they both sleep and
rear young, two of the most vulnerable
states in animal lives. To optimize
the safety and suitability of refuges
available to them, many animals have
become architects and create their own
shelters, ranging from simple holes in
the ground to the large complex nests
of some social insects.
Building or modifying a structure to
create a refuge, however, requires time
and energy, and understanding this
behaviour in a social and ecological
context is key to understanding
the selection pressures that shape
it. Though animal architecture is
taxonomically widespread, reviews of
animal architecture often focus on birds
and insects. Few researchers discuss,
let alone parameterize and model,
the advantages and disadvantages of
shelter construction in mammals.
Bats are the second largest order
of mammals with more than 1400
species described to date, and exhibit
stunning diversity in ecology, social
systems, behaviour, and morphology.
All bats depend on suitable shelters
or ‘roosts’ as they rest during the day,
and often also between foraging bouts
at night. Bat shelters have to fulfil
specific microclimate and accessibility
requirements, and their availability both
limits species distribution ranges and
is crucial for successful conservation.
For example, the fact that so many
bats aggregate in just a few suitable
caves has had a dramatic influence
on the spread in North America of
white-nose syndrome, a devastating