Sven Weber is a PhD-Student at the University of Trier. During his undergrad at HHU Düsseldorf, Germany, he focused on populations genetics, mainly on Tomatoes and other Solanaceae. He continued his studies at the RWTH Aachen, Germany. His Thesis about spider population changes over 20 years was supported by the International Society of Arachnology and he finished the MS in 2019. Since then he working on his PhD-Thesis and studies a broad variety of eDNA assays for German ecosystems. He is a scholarship holder of the German Federal Environmental Foundation (DBU).

Anja Melcher Anja Melcher is a PhD-Student at the University of Trier, Germany. She graduated in B.Sc. of Biology at HHU Düsseldorf, Germany in 2018. In 2020, she obtained her M.Sc. in Biology, majoring in molecular ecology and evolution from HHU Düsseldorf. For her PhD at Trier University, she investigates the functional role of spiders in food webs along a land-use gradient using molecular gut content analyses. This project is part of the Biodiversity Exploratories of Germany and backed by the German Research Foundation (DFG).