Conservation Science

When it comes to wildlife conservation a huge personality or bags of charisma tends to help your cause. Prefacing any group of animals or plants with the words 'big', 'great' or 'giant' seems to win them fans. Big cats, great apes and giant redwoods are all the focus of on-going research, campaigns and policies attempting to preserve them for future generations. The public are easily drawn to helping iconic and visually-impressive species, which in turn leads to their plight being prioritised.

From Kirkus Reviews: “From tropical rain forests to alpine meadows and arctic tundra, seed plants dominate landscapes and define ecosystems.” In fact, they make up more than 90 percent of land flora.

Join the Aqua Kids as they meet up with Dr. Elphick (Chris Field's advisor) to learn all about declining salt marsh bird habitat. From participating in grass research to coring trees, you will not want to miss all of the excitement in this week’s episode.

For the past three years I have been involved in several projects to test the utility of detecting species in their environment simply by finding their DNA they leave behind. Using environmental DNA (eDNA) to detect species is at the forefront of new tools in the tool box for conservation and restoration. Environmental DNA detection of species particularly from water can provide geographic information of presence for species of concern, invasive species and can even be used to do whole community assessments.

Robert Long has been recognized among the first group of 20 scientists awarded the newly established Wilburforce Fellowship in Conservation Science, announced recently by the Wilburforce Foundation and COMPASS. The overarching goal of the Wilburforce Fellowship program is to build a community of conservation science leaders who excel in using science to help achieve durable conservation solutions in western North America.

To female black-tailed deer, their home turf provides a safe haven and a refuge against possible predation by pumas. Does that venture into unchartered territory are four times more likely to fall prey to these cats. After tracking deer in California's coastal mountains, a team of researchers led by Tavis Forrester, then at the University of California Davis in the US, has proven that the old adage 'home sweet home' holds true for deer. The findings are published in Springer's journal Behavioral Ecology and Sociobiology.

Polar bears are among the most familiar faces of climate change. The iconic bears, which live and hunt on dwindling Arctic sea ice, became an officially threatened species in 2008 and continue to show declining numbers. But the bears may be facing another threat, from pollutants that have been banned for decades. A study published in the January issue of Environmental Research linked elevated levels of PCBs to lower density in male bears' penile bones, which may disrupt the bears' reproductive abilities.

In 2014, Fellows Brett Amy Thelen and Brad Timm received a Network Innovation Grant to support a small project aimed at piloting field techniques for assessing the effectiveness of amphibian road crossing brigades, and at convening potential collaborators for a larger regional research initiative focused on reducing amphibian road mortality in the northeastern United States. Here is some of what they've learned from this project.

Green crabs have been lurking in local waters for a while. They came to wider New England awareness as an invasive species to be reckoned with in 2013, when researcher and marine ecologist Brian Beal convened a green crab summit in Orono, Maine. Spinoff meetings in Massachusetts followed. I attended those meetings, then bought a crab trap, baited it with herring and other fish, and before long was hauling hundreds of crabs at a time from a tidal estuary in the salt marshes of Ipswich.