Monday 19 August 2013

Saving the manatee



Dr John Reynolds from the Mote Marine Laboratory in Florida has recently come to the University of Birmingham to talk about marine mammal conservation. As I am a researcher whose area has nothing to do with conservation, I was interested in attending and learn some more. Here I have written some of the highlights from the talk. I hope you find them as interesting as I did and help spread the word.

The talk was focused on sirenians like the manatee.
It started with striking data from different organisations such as the Pew Oceans Commission, the Marine Mammal Commission (MMC) and the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN). Some examples:


  • 2.5% of species of marine mammals have become extinct in the last 60 years.
  • While some species have shown recoveries (North Pacific grey whale) others are in critical condition, for example vaquita, Mediterranean monk seals and the AT1 pod of killer whales in Alaska which haven’t reproduced successfully since 1987. 
  • The baiji disappeared in 2007.
  • Five taxa have less than 400 individuals remaining.
  • The West African manatee is the most prone to extinction.
And the most striking of all:

  • ONE THIRD of the species worldwide (not only marine mammals) are threatened with extinction!
So why is conservation so difficult? Why haven’t we been able to control the survival of critical species? Some of us might wonder whether it is lack of information. "No, what is lacking is the political will to take the information we have and convert it into strategies”, Dr Reynolds remarked. Undoubtedly conservation requires good science. So it is down to us scientists to communicate our research so that it appeals to decision-makers, and speaks to human values. We also have to think how our science can be used to find solutions. This means that rather than aimlessly generate data, our research must have a purpose.


There are basically two approaches to conservation. It can be accomplished from the bottom-up. For example, if we work with the communities to change their values and perceptions. And it can also take place form the top-down through policy and regulation. However, the second approach cannot always be successful without the implementation of the first one. 

Enabling tools, like research and community partnerships, seem to be the key to success. To illustrate this point, Dr Reynolds told us the following story:

Communities in the Colombian Amazon used to hunt for manatee as it was part of their diet. As with other groups around the world, hunters went for females with a calf. They knew that the biologists and conservationists would immediately come down to rescue the orphan baby and pay them money for it. However, in this one occasion the conservationists never showed up. The villagers were stuck with a baby manatee. Eventually everyone became attached to it, even the hunters. When it grew up to an adult size, conservationists came down to take it back to the river. They put a radio tag on it and amazingly enough, the hunters were the ones demanding to go out and monitor its whereabouts! People in the community realised how special manatees are, they stopped eating them and even talked the neighbouring villages into not hunting them anymore.

This is a wonderful example of how we can promote a change in human values within the communities for the benefit of conservation.


In summary, if you want to be A GOOD CONSERVATIONIST you need to:

  • Be proactive to address the future challenges.
  • Be creative and imaginative.
  • Address human values and behaviours.
  • Have the guts to stand up for what’s important.
  • Seek solutions rather than more information.
  • Create interdisciplinary teams including population ecologists, community ecologists, assistance ecologists, chemists, social scientists, economists and ethicists.
To finish this post, here is the TAKE-HOME MESSAGE from Dr Reynolds: “If marine mammals are to be conserved, we need to recognise the current obstacles to conservation and have the social will to change”

I think this can definitely be applied to conservation of all species, not just marine mammals. What do you think?

Tuesday 6 August 2013

Long live the orange!

One of the things I noticed during my trip to Andalusia was the incredible amount of orange trees. They were everywhere, from the Cathedral in Seville with its famous Patio de los Naranjos (orange tree courtyard) to the breathtaking Alhambra gardens in Granada. I thought Spain would be one of the main orange-producers in the world. I was wrong. The top countries that produce oranges are the USA and Brazil.


I count myself among the people who love orange juice. So I wanted to find out more about the properties of oranges. My scientific literature search was not very productive. Most of the studies have been done on general fruit juice intake. Only very few are specific for orange juice. Being the most popular fruit juice in the USA, orange juice is one of the richest in nutrients such as vitamins C and B6, magnesium and potassium.

One of the most striking benefits of drinking 100% orange juice is that it helps to reduce the levels of lipids in our blood. For example, people who suffer from hypercholesterolaemia (high cholesterol levels in the blood) could benefit from increasing their orange juice intake. It also helps to decrease the risk of obesity and hypertension, consequently protecting our cardiovascular system.

I even found an article on the analysis of the orange draft genome! Having scientists studying the genome of this fruit shows how important oranges have become. They analysed the genome of the Valencia sweet orange, which is one of the most cultivated worldwide and used for orange juice production. They suggested that sweet oranges originated from a backcross hybrid between pummelos and mandarins. This means that first we had a cross between a pummelo and a mandarin, the resulting hybrid was then crossed again with another mandarin, giving rise to our sweet orange. The scientists also identified one of the key proteins that make oranges accumulate high levels of vitamin C. This study provides a valuable tool for the future of orange breeding and genetic improvement.


Talking about genetic improvement, this article – A Race to Save the Orange by Altering Its DNA – in The New York Times is quite striking. It talks about a disease that is threatening orange crops all over the world, in particular, the big ones in Florida who produce most of the orange juice consumed in the USA. The disease called citrus greening is deadly to all citrus including oranges, and cannot be fought by traditional methods like chopping down trees or using pesticides. The last hope for the growers is genetic modification. The project is still ongoing. I’m looking forward to see the results. Will we eventually have citrus greening-resistant orange trees? Personally, I’d like to keep enjoying a glass of orange juice in years to come. 

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