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: Genetic Diversity
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…
What We’re Reading- Sept 8, 2017
Pro-Active Management of Genetic Diversity This paper quantified changes in genetic diversity in an experimental translocation of brook trout (Salvelinus fontinalis) into four isolated populations from a single source population. The authors found that translocating 10 fish into the experimental populations significantly increased allelic richness and heterozygosity in the first generation following translocation. They also…
What is Urban Evolution?
In 2009 the United Nations reported that half of the world’s human population lived in cities and was expected to grow to 66% by 2050. The movement of people from dispersed living to concentration in urban environments is a large change both for human civilization and for the environment. Urbanization is the process of changing…
What We’re Reading- May 26, 2017
Protect Krill to Protect Whales We previously wrote about the importance of krill (marine invertebrates) for supporting oceanic ecosystems. This paper (sub) compared the movement of humpback whales (Megaptera novaeangiliae) to tonnage of krill harvested around the West Antarctic peninsula. The authors found a correlation between spatial areas where the whales spent the most time and…
What We’re Reading- May 19, 2017
Genetic Diversity of Snow Leopards Snow leopards (Panthera uncia) are endemic to the Altai, Himalaya, and Tibetan uplifts and adapted to high-altitude environments. They are currently listed as an endangered species by IUCN. This new paper investigated genetic diversity of snow leopards across their range. They found that the cats have low genetic diversity in…
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…
CRISPR for Conservation
I’ve got this feeling that CRISPR is the next PCR. Have you ever met someone who was an early adopter of PCR? No, I mean an early adopter of PCR where the technique required three water baths, a swivel chair, a stop watch, and AN ACTUAL PERSON to move the reaction tubes between water baths every…
What We’re Reading- Feb 17, 2017
Endangered Populations Growing in Size But Still at Risk The Little Spotted Kiwi (Apteryx owenii) is a near threatened bird species that once inhabited forests throughout New Zealand, but is now constricted to near shore islands devoid of introduced predators. Each of the eight islands the birds now inhabit was founded by a different number…
What we’re reading: Nov 7, 2014
Education and Positive Conservation Outcomes This paper (open) describes a community outreach program specifically aimed at reducing poaching of five ungulate and one rodent species in a reserve in Thailand. Pressure dropped by a factor of four and was not correlated with park patrol. The six species increased significantly over the course of the study…
What we’re reading- Feb 7, 2014
Fine-scale genetic structure detected in forest elephants WildlifeSNPits blogger Stephanie Schuttler’s paper on forest elephant (Loxodonta cyclotis, remember they’re a different species than L. africanus) networks reveal kin groups despite high genetic diversity. All work was done using non-invasive dung samples. Genome size of flying species Metabolic intensity of flight drives the reduction of genome…
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