Launching in 2027
Submitted by many. Measured one way.
Common Measure is the neutral reference layer for environmental DNA. Results from different laboratories, produced in different years, expressed on one scale and readable a decade later.
We don't run samples. We make them comparable.
01 · THE PROBLEM
Why can't two laboratories agree on what's in the same sample?
Because each one uses its own analysis pipeline, its own reference database, and its own quality thresholds. Split a liter of river water, a gram of forest soil, or a sediment core from a harbor floor between two competent laboratories and you will get two different taxa lists. Neither is wrong.
That single fact blocks four things the market needs: multi-year trend claims, multi-vendor procurement, regulatory acceptance, and any value for environmental DNA data after the project that produced it closes.
This is one of four widely recognized bottlenecks in environmental DNA, and the only one we work on. What the other three are →
…eDNA method reliability is not the problem. Rather, we suggest that the interface between results and management needs attention since there are few tools for integrating uncertainty into decision-making.
0.23× to 4.31×
The range Round Goby eDNA concentration spanned around its expected value at one Hudson River site over 19.5 days, from sampling and short-term variation alone (qPCR).
Augustine et al. 2026, Environmental DNA. doi:10.1002/edn3.703470.96
The probability that one filter membrane (MCE) recovered more than 10% more target DNA than another (PES), for one species at one river site.
Augustine et al. 2026, Environmental DNA. doi:10.1002/edn3.7034731 vs 33
Mean vertebrate taxa (mostly fish) from ten PCR replicates of one field sample, versus one PCR replicate from each of ten field samples, at one intertidal site. No significant difference. The count alone does not show which design produced it.
Schulte et al. 2026, PLOS One (Jonah Ventures). doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0350111These figures come from aquatic studies, because that is where the measurement work has been done. Whether the same magnitudes hold for soil, sediment and air has not been measured.
02 · WHY NOBODY HAS FIXED IT
No laboratory can operate the neutral reference layer, however good it is.
Several laboratories have built strong platforms. The obstacle is not quality. It is that making results comparable requires laboratories to send their raw data to whoever operates the reference layer, and no laboratory can reasonably be asked to send that to a company bidding against it for the same contracts.
Laboratories compete in the same market. Goodwill does not change that.
We are paid the same whichever laboratory produced a result, and whatever it shows.
Standards bodies are already at work on part of this. ISO published a standard for eDNA water sampling and preservation in 2026, and further standards covering extraction and reporting are in development. That work is necessary and we build on it. What none of it yet addresses is what happens after a sample reaches a sequencer — how a sequence is given a stable identity, how reference database versions are tracked, and how results from two laboratories are actually compared. That is the layer Common Measure operates.
02b · CREDIT WHERE IT IS DUE
The hard part happens before we ever see the data
Recovering usable genetic material from a liter of river water, a soil core or a marine sediment grab is difficult. So is designing a primer set that amplifies what you want and not what you don't, diagnosing inhibition, keeping contamination out of a laboratory that processes thousands of samples a year, and knowing when a result looks wrong.
That work takes years to learn and is expensive to do properly. It is not what Common Measure does. We take data that has already been produced well and make sure it can be compared with data produced somewhere else.
03 · HOW IT WORKS
One identifier. One audit trail. Every ecosystem.
We don't interpret your results. We record exactly how they were produced, so anyone can.
- 01
A stable identifier
Every sequence resolves to the same permanent identifier across runs, laboratories and years. Species names change as taxonomy is revised; the identifier does not, so your historical record updates instead of breaking.
Baetis tricaudatus is one of North America's most common stream mayflies. Barcode studies have found COI divergence above 20% among specimens given that name, yet a single California watershed holds just one lineage. The name alone cannot tell you which you have. A record keyed to the sequence can.
Stauffer-Olsen et al. 2017, Freshwater Science. doi:10.1086/691973 - 02
A locked audit trail
Pipeline version, reference database version, bait panel version, filter type, replicate structure and quality thresholds are recorded against every project, permanently. That is what makes a report auditable.
- 03
One frame across domains
Soil, freshwater, marine, sediment and air. Animals, plants, fungi and bacteria. Most monitoring programs span more than one of these, and most sites carry obligations in several at once — a mine has a receiving stream, a port has a shoreline, a wind lease has a seabed and a cable route inland. At launch this covers DNA metabarcoding of submitted sequence data, with dedicated pipelines for CO1, 12S, 16S (bacteria and vertebrates), fungal ITS and plant ITS. Other amplicons run through a general pipeline. Hybridization capture is next, because a capture result cannot be interpreted without knowing which bait panel produced it. Targeted assays and environmental RNA follow.
- 04
Neutral by construction
Same method, same price, published openly, for every laboratory. No preferential terms, ever.
04 · THE OPEN SPECIFICATION
The specification is free. Having us run your data through it is not.
A specification that costs money gets forked, and a forked specification is worthless. So the method, the identifier specification, the lookup and all validation data are free, permanently, with an email-verified account, and that commitment will be written into our operating agreement.
Free, forever
- The comparability method, published in full.
- The identifier specification and assignment rules
- SPIN lookup.
- Ring-test and validation data, once published.
- All committee proceedings
Everything on the free side requires an account, verified by email. The account is free, and it stays free.
Paid
- Sequence-data processing
- The client workspace
- The signed assurance record: how each result was produced.
- Dedicated US-hosted instances
Anyone can check our work without paying us.
What free actually means, and what is not free05 · WHO IT HELPS
Who it is for.
| Category | What they get | Why they pay |
|---|---|---|
| Laboratories and core facilities | Analysis pipeline and a client-facing portal, run as a service | Frees scientific staff from pipeline maintenance. |
| Environmental consultancies | Results that carry their own provenance into a permit file | Billable to the client, and a challenged permit costs far more than the survey |
| Offshore energy and marine infrastructure | One reference frame across vendors and decades of monitoring obligation | Baselines set today must still hold at decommissioning |
| Mining, forestry and land management | Soil and vegetation recovery evidenced rather than asserted | Reclamation bonds and closure obligations turn on demonstrated recovery |
| Water utilities and hydropower | Source protection, intake monitoring and relicensing evidence | A shutdown or a failed relicensing costs more than a decade of monitoring |
| Federal, state and tribal agencies | Standardized, US-hosted, sovereignty-aware data management | Comparable data across programs they do not control |
| Agriculture and supply chain | Soil biodiversity measured consistently across seasons and suppliers | Outcome claims that can survive an audit |
| Software and data platforms | Inputs they can trust without re-checking every lab | Conforming records any tool can read, and a validator to check them |
06 · WHERE WE SIT
Built in Washington, for the people doing this work across the country
Most environmental DNA in the United States is produced by small laboratories, university cores and agency programs operating on tight budgets. They are good at the science. None of them can afford to build reference infrastructure, and none of them would adopt it from a competitor if they could.
Common Measure exists to carry that cost once, for all of them.
US-hosted, US-governed
Biological data from American waters, soils and ecosystems is stored under American jurisdiction, with tribal sovereignty respected as a condition of the work rather than a compliance checkbox. Processing moves to a United States region by the end of 2027.
Built for US programs
Clean Water Act bioassessment, ESA and NEPA review, hydropower relicensing, offshore wind and BOEM permitting, mine reclamation and closure, forestry certification, and state invasive watchlists across land and water. Fifty states, each with its own rules.
07 · WHY NOW
Washington has named the gap.
The 2024 National Aquatic eDNA Strategy, drafted by an interagency task team from fifteen federal agencies, found that agencies' "sampling, analyzing, and reporting methodologies vary considerably, reducing the efficacy of data sharing, reporting, and use for policy and management." S. 5273, the Fisheries Science Modernization Act (2026), would require NOAA to develop national standards for eDNA methods and make results easier to compare across agencies and regions. National Science and Technology Council, National Aquatic Environmental DNA Strategy, June 2024.
At the same time the market is moving toward openness on its own. Some laboratories now publish their methods and return raw sequence data. No single laboratory can provide comparability.
