The risks of using molecular biodiversity data for incidental detection of species of concern

An important opinion paper on “The risks of using molecular biodiversity data for incidental detection of species of concern”, published in Diversity and Distributions journal. It emphasizes the need of more stringent quality control standards for molecular biodiversity data to ensure that data are suitable for informing decision‐making and can withstand legal or political challenges. This is essential also for protecting data generators from uncritical and potentially ill‐advised application of their science in decision‐making.