I’ve used some of these photos in previous posts (here and here), but now I need to post an update. This little dragon is now known as the Monaro grassland earless dragon. I’m excited to be a co-author on the paper, published last week in Royal Society Open Science (open access), that describes this species….
Tag: Endangered Species
Conservation in action: videos and teaching resources
I’m a fan of celebrating conservation success stories and sharing conservation optimism. In fact I’ve written about this before. Today, I want to share some wonderful teaching resources, that also highlight some reasons for hope in wildlife conservation. A little while back, I asked twitter to recommend short videos about mammal conservation in Australia, to…
What We’re Reading- June 8, 2018
Stakeholders Diverse Interests in Endangered Vulture Conservation The Egyptian vulture (Neophron percnopterus) is an endangered bird native across northern Africa, the Middle East, and as far east as the Indian subcontinent. Researchers asked diverse stakeholders including hunters, ranchers, and tourists in northern Spain (the upper range of the vulture’s distribution) about their knowledge of the species…
Rhino Conservation: Dehorning Demand
There are five living species of rhinoceros: black (Diceros bicornis), white (Ceratotherium simum), Javan (Rhinoceros sondaicus), Indian (Rhinoceros unicornis), and Sumatran (Dicerorhinus sumatrensis) rhinos. And not too long ago there was a woolly rhino (Coelodonta antiquitatis) that roamed northern Eurasia until it went extinct ~14,000 years ago. The IUCN lists black, Javan, and Sumatran rhinos as…
How the sugar glider got to Tasmania and why this is bad news for difficult birds
When is a native species also invasive, and how can we tell? This may seem a strange question, but it highlights the difficulty we sometimes face determining the boundaries of the area in which a species naturally occurs. Especially when detection is imperfect and those boundaries may change over time. Animals move. Plants move. Sometimes…
What We’re Reading – Jan 26, 2018
Temporal Genotyping for Conservation Monitoring This paper advocates using museum specimens to quantify recent losses of genetic diversity in species of conservation concern. The authors note that older demographic processes leave a signature on genetic diversity that can be difficult to distinguish from recent changes. Thus they show how using temporal sampling allows researchers to…
Does Biodiversity Matter?
Through fashion, I showed you how scientists calculate biodiversity and what it means. While some areas of the world are naturally more diverse than others – one thing is true: we are losing biodiversity at an alarming rate due to manmade causes. We are currently in the sixth mass extinction event to ever happen on…
What We’re Reading- April 28, 2017
Next-Generation Microsatellites What if conservation’s favorite marker (the microsatellite) could be sequenced and genotyped from next-generation data? This paper (sub) is the latest showing that possibility and specifically introduces a genotyping and phasing tool: HipSTR. Microsatellites have propelled much of conservation genetics and users are familiar with data analysis and interpretation of results. As next-generation…
Is Model Emily Ratajkowski Hurting or Helping Sea Turtles?
*This post was updated on April 6th, 2017. I get a daily alert from Vogue magazine (I know, shocking!). Today, I clicked on a link to check out model Emily Ratajkowski’s vacation photos from Mexico and was shocked to see her Instagram holding a baby sea turtle. This is bad for so many reasons. I am writing…
What We’re Reading- Jan 13, 2017
Ash Trees Under Attack European ash (Fraxinus excelsior) face dieback across their range due to a fungal pathogen (Hymenoscyphus fraxineus). Currently, there is no effective treatment for trees with the fungus, including managed removal of trees to prevent spread of the disease. However, natural variation in resistance to the pathogen is known and could be…
What We’re Reading- Jan 6, 2017
Pangolin Trade Network All species of pangolins are endangered throughout their range, due in large part to poaching for their meat and scales. Using media reports, a team of researchers identified approximately 65,800 individuals were harvested and seized between 2008-2016 although the level of harvest not detected remains unknown. Notably, only 117 individuals were reported poached in the…
Do Endangered Species have 12 Years to Wait?
My colleagues and I recently published on the time it takes to list a species under the US Endangered Species Act (ESA). This post will highlight some of our main findings with a few extra thoughts I have about the data. How long SHOULD it take to list a species under the ESA? In 1982…
WildlifeSNPits 