Constantine Alexander's blog

Prairie cordgrass: Highly underrated

Prairie cordgrass

When D.K. Lee and Lane Rayburn, faculty members in the crop sciences department at the University of Illinois, talk about prairie cordgrass (Spartina pectinata) they have difficulty containing their enthusiasm. They are among the very few people doing research on this grass as a potential energy crop.

According to Lee, switchgrass has been studied extensively as a forage crop and a dedicated energy crop. Recently this research has been extended to big bluestem, indiangrass, and other native grasses. Prairie cordgrass has received comparatively little attention because, unlike the others, it is not a good forage crop. "The cow has a preference; this grass is coarse and not good for grazing," Lee said.

However, as interest in energy crops and in feedstock production for cellulosic biofuels increases, prairie cordgrass is receiving more attention because it grows well on marginal land. "It likes environments that are too wet for row crop production." Lee explained.

He and his colleagues in the Energy Biosciences Institute, of which the U of I is a partner, are giving prairie cordgrass this increased attention as a biofuel source plant.

Many conservationists are also interested in the grass. "One of the characteristics of this grass is that it has a strong rhizome and root system," explained Lee. Thus, it is good for erosion control and conservation, particularly in riparian areas because it is a species that likes water.

Another important characteristic of Spartina pectinata is salt tolerance. Lee planted prairie cordgrass in west Texas in fields that could no longer be used for crop production because they had been irrigated with salty ground water. "It actually grew pretty well; the farmer was shocked," he said. Soil salinity is a problem in much of the marginal land throughout the world.

It also has good cold tolerance. Although it is a warm-season grass, it starts growing in mid-March like a cool-season grass. Its growing season is longer than that of corn, allowing it to accumulate high biomass.

Rayburn said that what makes it perfect as a biomass grass is that it is a native species with no invasiveness issues associated with it. "If I'm going to work with an energy crop, I want to bring something in that, environmentally and ecologically, I don't have to worry about," he said.

"It's a great plant," added Rayburn. "We know how to control it, it gives good biomass, and it grows on marginal land."

Lee and Rayburn wanted to know where the grass grows and whether it was all the same. Lee traveled over 10,000 miles around the country collecting more than 130 natural populations. He and his group then looked at the DNA and the ploidy level, which is the number of sets of chromosomes.

They found many differences. For example, the prairie cordgrass in South Dakota was mostly octoploid (eight sets of chromosomes) while the Illinois grass tended to be tetraploid (four sets). Then, to their surprise, they found a mixed-ploidy population comprising tetraploids and (previously unknown) hexaploids (six sets of chromosomes) at a single location in Illinois.

Lee said that, for biomass production, this newly discovered hexaploid is in the top five of his collection. "A lot of people want to have access to this thing, but I'm still keeping it in my house," he said. The Energy Biosciences Institute is hoping to patent the variety. Lee's 'Savoy' cultivar has recently been patented.

Rayburn said that finding the hexaploid "was like catching a snapshot of evolution." The area where the hexaploid was found is a piece of Conservation Reserve Program (CRP) land that has not been farmed for 20 years, meaning that the polyploidy event occurred quite recently.

Rayburn and Lee describe their collaboration as "a perfect combination." Lee is focusing on developing a better cultivar with good agronomic traits. Rayburn is interested in how the hexaploid evolved. "What he does helps me in my studies of how the plant evolved; what I do helps him in his studies on improving it," said Rayburn, "and he's fun to work with."

The Energy Biosciences Institute, funded by the energy company BP, is a research collaboration that includes the University of Illinois, the University of California at Berkeley, and Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. It is dedicated to applying the biological sciences to the challenges of producing sustainable, renewable energy for the world.

The research is described in more detail in the following articles:

• Kim, S.M., A.L. Rayburn, and D.K. Lee. 2010. "Genome Size and Chromosome Analysis in Prairie Cordgrass (Spartina pectinata L.)." Crop Science 50:2277-2282.
• Kim, S.M., A.L. Rayburn, A. Parrish, and D.K. Lee. 2012. "Cytogeographic Distribution and Genome Size Variation in Prairie Cordgrass (Spartina pectinata Bosc ex Link)." Plant Molecular Biology Reporter (in press, online first).
• Kim, S.M., A.L. Rayburn, A. Boe, and D.K. Lee. 2012. "Neopolyploidy in Spartina pectinata Link: 1. Morphological Analysis of Tetraploid and Hexaploid Plants in a Mixed Natural Population." Plant Systematic and Evolution (in press, online first).
• Kim, S.M., A.L. Rayburn, T. Voigt, A. Parrish and D.K. Lee. 2012. "Salinity effects on germination and plant growth of prairie cordgrass and switchgrass." Bioenergy Research 5: 225-235.

Contact: Susan Jongeneel
sjongene@illinois.edu
University of Illinois College of Agricultural, Consumer and Environmental Sciences

The academic jungle: Ecosystem model reveals why women are driven out of science

For more than a decade, the Women in Science and Technology (WIST) conference opened doors for young women considering careers in scientific and technical fields by providing them with valuable information and encouragement as well as by introducing them to successful women professionals.

Understanding how a species battles to sustain itself in a challenging habitat is a cornerstone of ecological research; now scientists have applied this approach to science itself to discover why women are being driven out of academia. Their results, published in Oikos, reveals how a gender imbalance in science and academia is maintained by institutional barriers.

"In ecology a species can only establish itself and develop if the population exceeds a certain threshold," said Dr Katherine O'Brien from the University of Queensland, Australia. "It's similar for researchers and academics who need to reach a certain point before they can attract more funding, more students to teach and high quality collaborators which can increase their research productivity. Yet there are barriers which prevent women from reaching this point."

One of these barriers is the tendency of female academics towards part-time work in order to balance family and work commitments. Working part-time is rare in academia while university managers find it difficult to assess the research performance of part-time staff using traditional methods.

The performance of academics and researchers is increasingly assessed using set metrics such as the number of papers produced in a year or the number of citations the research generates.

While these metrics can promote research output within an organisation, they can also undermine diversity, which in ecological terms is fatal to a species as it underpins resilience.

"To use the ecology analogy, research productivity is similar to the birth rate of a new species. Both need to exceed a critical rate if the population is going to grow and survive, or the academic is to become established in their field," said O'Brien. "However, research metrics are strongly biased towards full-time continuous employment and penalise academics who take time off before they become established."

The ecological model also suggests that if women have children before becoming established they will struggle to remain competitive with their full-time peers. This explains drift of women from research into teaching, where performance is assessed on current rather than accumulated historical performance.

To address the gender imbalance the authors suggest that women who go part-time should be strategic and concentrate on either research of teaching. In turn university managers should be cautious in judging success using metrics, and implement schemes to ensure that part-time work and career breaks are not "one-way tickets" out of research.

"The ecological approach demonstrates that any system which operates on a narrow criteria, be it a forest or a faculty, undermines itself by reducing both diversity and the pool of talent from which our researchers are drawn," concluded O'Brien. "In a working environment dominated by those working full-time women need to be brave and be prepared to be the odd ones out."

Contact: Ben Norman
Lifesciencenews@wiley.com
44-124-377-0375
Wiley-Blackwell

 

Greenland ice may exaggerate magnitude of 13,000-year-old deep freeze

Ice samples pulled from nearly a mile below the surface of Greenland glaciers have long served as a historical thermometer, adding temperature data to studies of the local conditions up to the Northern Hemisphere's climate.

But the method -- comparing the ratio of oxygen isotopes buried as snow fell over millennia -- may not be such a straightforward indicator of air temperature.

"We don't believe the ice cores can be interpreted purely as a signal of temperature," says Anders Carlson, a University of Wisconsin–Madison geosciences professor. "You have to consider where the precipitation that formed the ice came from."

According to a study published today by the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, the Greenland ice core drifts notably from other records of Northern Hemisphere temperatures during the Younger Dryas, a period beginning nearly 13,000 years ago of cooling so abrupt it's believed to be unmatched since.

Such periods of speedy cooling and warming are of special interest to climate scientists, who are teasing out the mechanisms of high-speed change to better understand and predict the changes occurring in our own time.

In the case of the Younger Dryas, average temperatures -- based on the Greenland ice -- plummeted as much as 15 degrees Celsius in a few centuries, and then shot back up nearly as much (over just decades) about 1,000 years later.

"In terms of temperature during the Younger Dryas, the only thing that looks like Greenland ice cores are Greenland ice cores," Carlson says. "They are supposed to be iconic for the Northern Hemisphere, but we have four other records that do not agree with the Greenland ice cores for that time. That abrupt cooling is there, just not to the same degree."

Working with UW–Madison climatologist Zhengyu Liu, collaborators at the National Center for Atmospheric Research and others, Carlson found their computer climate model breaking down on the Younger Dryas.

While it could reliably recreate temperatures in the Oldest Dryas -- a similar cooling period about 18,000 years ago -- they just couldn't find a lever in the model that would simulate a Younger Dryas that matched the Greenland ice cores.

"You can totally turn off ocean circulation, have Arctic sea ice advance all the way across the North Atlantic, and you still will have a warmer climate during the Younger Dryas than the Oldest Dryas because of the carbon dioxide," Carlson says.

By the time the Younger Dryas rolled around, there was more carbon dioxide in the air -- about 50 parts per million more. The warming effects of that much CO2 overwhelmed the rest of the conditions that make the Oldest and Younger Dryas so alike, and demonstrates a heightened sensitivity for Arctic temperatures to rising greenhouse gases in the atmosphere.

The researchers zeroed in on the Northern Hemisphere's temperature outlier, Greenland ice cores, and found that the conversion of oxygen isotope ratio to temperature typically used on the ice cores did not account for the sort of crash climate change occurring during the Younger Dryas. It assumes prevailing winds and jet streams and storm tracks are providing the moisture for Greenland precipitation from the Atlantic Ocean.

"The Laurentide ice sheet, which covered much of North America down into the northern United States, is getting smaller as the Younger Dryas approaches," Carlson says. "That's like taking out a mountain of ice three kilometers high. As that melts, it allows more Pacific Ocean moisture to cross the continent and hit the Greenland ice sheet."

The two oceans have distinctly different ratios of oxygen isotopes, allowing for a different isotope ratio where the water falls as snow.

"We ran an oxygen isotope-enabled atmosphere model, so we could simulate what these ice cores are actually recording, and it can match the actual oxygen isotopes in the ice core even though the temperature doesn't cool as much," Carlson says. "That, to us, means the source of precipitation has changed in Greenland across the last deglatiation. And therefore that the strict interpretation of this iconic record as purely temperature of snowfall above this ice sheet is wrong."

By the study's findings, Greenland temperatures may not have cooled as significantly as climate headed into the Younger Dryas relative to the Oldest Dryas, because of the rise in atmospheric carbon dioxide that had occurred since the Oldest Dryas.

"You can say at the end of the Younger Dryas it warmed 10, plus or minus five, degrees Celsius. But what happened on this pathway into the event, you can't see," Carlson says.

It's a fresh reminder from an ancient ice core that climate science is full of nuance, according to Carlson.

"Abrupt climate changes have happened, but they come with complex shifts in the way climate inputs like moisture moved around," he says. "You can't take one difference and interpret it solely as changes in temperature, and that's what we're seeing here in the Greenland ice cores."

The National Science Foundation and Department of Energy funded the research.

Contact: Anders Carlson
acarlson@geology.wisc.edu
608-262-1921
University of Wisconsin-Madison

BP Deepwater Horizon oil spill exacerbated existing environmental problems in Louisiana marshes

The BP Deepwater Horizon oil spill temporarily worsened existing manmade problems in Louisiana's salt marshes such as erosion, but there may be cause for optimism, according to a new study.

A study appearing online Monday in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences found the 2010 spill killed off salt marsh plants 15 to 30 feet from the shoreline and this plant die off resulted in a more-than-doubled rate of erosion along the marsh edge and subsequent permanent marsh habitat loss. Vegetation farther from shore was relatively untouched by the incoming oil.

"Louisiana is already losing about a football field worth of wetlands every hour, and that was before the spill," said Brian Silliman, a University of Florida biologist and lead author of the study. "When grasses die from heavy oiling, their roots, that hold the marsh sediment together, also often die. By killing grasses on the marsh shoreline, the spill pushed erosion rates on the marsh edge to more than double what they were before. Because Louisiana was already experiencing significant erosive marsh loss due to the channelization of the Mississippi, this is a big example of how multiple human stressors can have additive effects."

Marshes are the life's blood of coastal Louisiana because they act as critical nurseries for the shrimp, oysters and fish produced in these waters while helping to sequester significant amounts of carbon. They also protect coastlines from flooding and guard estuarine waters from nutrient pollution.

But the marshes have been suffering for decades as a result of the channelization of the Mississippi River, which has starved them from needed sediments to deter erosion.

Then came the oil spill.

Researchers observed minimal oil on the surfaces of grasses located more than 45 feet from the shoreline, indicating that significant amounts of oil did not move into interior marshes.

Instead, the researchers found that the tall grasses along the marsh edge acted as wall-like trap to incoming oil slicks, concentrating oil on the marsh edge. This concentration of oil on the shoreline protected interior marshes from oiling but worsened already extreme erosion on the shoreline. As oiled plants died, their roots that hold tight to the sediment perished as well. Already eroding sediment was now exposed to wave action without the effect of the gripping plant roots.

The result: elevated erosion rates for 1.5 years that averaged more than 10 feet of shoreline loss per year -- double the natural rate for this area.

The encouraging results, Silliman said, included significant declines in the oil concentration on the marsh surface over 1.5 years and that unaffected, healthy marsh plants in the marsh interior quickly grew back into marsh die-off areas that had not yet been lost due to heightened erosion.

When the new marsh plant growth grew into the erosive edge of the marsh, Silliman said, the recolonization of the area by the gripping plant roots shut down the oil-elevated erosion rates and returned them to those seen at marsh sites where oil coverage did not occur.

The researchers also found that polyaromatic hydrocarbons, or PAHs, a carcinogenic byproduct of oil, was 100 percent greater at the Barateria Bay testing site than in reference marshes. This finding provides chemical evidence to support their visual observations that marshes in the affected areas were laden with oil while those in reference areas did not receive significant oiling.

By adding Biochar, a charcoal-based substance, to marshlands, Silliman's team is also using new bioremediation tactics to try to break down PAHs into organic material. If this method is successful, he said, it could be used to supplement naturally occurring microbes in the marsh mud that already oxidize the oil carcinogen. The team is soon to publish those findings.

"This is a new idea applied toward cleaning up PAHs," said UF chemistry professor Andrew R. Zimmerman, a co-author on the paper. "It's possible there's a bunch lurking at the bottom of the bay."

Writer: Claudia Adrien

Contact: Brian Silliman
brs@ufl.edu
University of Florida

Lead poisoning blocks recovery of California condor population

Study confirms lead-based ammunition as primary source of lead in condors, shows population cannot recover as long as lead contamination persists.

A comprehensive study led by environmental toxicologists at the University of California, Santa Cruz, shows that California condors are continually exposed to harmful levels of lead, the principal source of that lead is ammunition, and lead poisoning from ammunition is preventing the recovery of the condor population.

The scientists reported their findings in a paper to be published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS) the week of June 25 (online Early Edition). First author Myra Finkelstein, a research toxicologist at UC Santa Cruz, said the study shows that without a solution to the problem of lead poisoning, the condor population can only be sustained through intensive and costly management efforts.

"We will never have a self-sustaining wild condor population if we don't solve this problem," she said. "Currently, California condors are tagged and monitored, trapped twice a year for blood tests, and when necessary treated for lead poisoning in veterinary hospitals, and they still die from lead poisoning on a regular basis."

With a total population of just 22 birds in 1982, the California condor once teetered on the brink of extinction. A successful captive breeding program enabled the reintroduction of condors into the wild (at sites in California, Arizona, and Baja California), and the total population grew to nearly 400 birds (captive and free-flying) by the end of 2010. But the new study, which focuses on condors in California, describes a population still on the verge of collapse, sustained only by ongoing human intervention.

Since 1997, about half of all free-flying condors in California have required treatment for lead poisoning, and each year about one in five birds needs treatment. This usually involves capturing the birds and transporting them to a zoo where they can receive chelation therapy to remove lead from their blood and supportive care until they are healthy enough to return to the wild.

Condors are opportunistic scavengers, feeding primarily on the carcasses of large mammals such as deer. They can ingest fragments of lead bullets from feeding on carcasses or gut piles of animals shot by hunters. Lead poisoning was probably one of several factors that led to the near extinction of the species.

The new study brings together an interdisciplinary team and several lines of evidence to understand the impact of lead on the condor population, said coauthor Donald Smith, professor of environmental toxicology at UC Santa Cruz. A previous study from Smith's lab had already identified ammunition as the principal source of lead poisoning in condors. By expanding the number of cases studied by about five times, the new study confirms and extends the earlier findings.

The UCSC researchers are able to identify the source of the lead in a condor blood sample using a "fingerprinting" technique based on the isotope ratios found in different sources of lead. Condors raised in captivity that have not yet been released into the wild have low blood lead levels, with lead isotope ratios that fall within the range of background environmental lead in California. Most free-flying condors, however, have lead isotope ratios consistent with those found in ammunition, and the higher a bird's blood lead level, the more likely that its lead isotope ratio matches the lead in ammunition.

In addition to blood samples, the researchers also analyzed lead in feathers. Because feathers grow over a period of several months, sampling sequentially along the length of the feather gives a record of the bird's history of lead exposure. The results not only show that condors are chronically lead poisoned, but also suggest that the magnitude of lead exposure is likely much higher than indicated by periodic blood monitoring, Finkelstein said.

The study also found that even when blood lead levels are below the threshold that would prompt treatment for lead poisoning, condors experience sublethal health effects from lead exposure. The researchers used a biochemical test that is a well-established biomarker for lead toxicity in humans and wildlife. The results showed that condors are as sensitive to lead as other species, and about 30 percent of condors every year are exposed to levels that cause sublethal health effects.

The research team's analysis of condor population demographics, led by University of Colorado biologist Dan Doak, was particularly discouraging. Without continued releases of captive-reared birds and interventions to treat lead-poisoning, the condor population would again decline toward extinction, the researchers found. How long this would take depends on assumptions about the mortality rate from lead-poisoning, but demographic projections indicated that, within the next few decades, the wild condor population in California would be reduced once again to just 22 birds.

The free-flying condor population does appear to be roughly stable under current levels of intensive management, the study found. Coauthor Jesse Grantham, who recently retired as head of the condor recovery program for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, estimated the current cost of the condor program to be about $5 million per year, including the contributions of all the agencies and organizations involved in the effort. This level of management would have to continue in perpetuity to keep the population from again declining toward extinction.

Efforts in California to address the problem of lead exposure have led to state regulations banning the use of lead ammunition in condor habitat. A partial ban went into effect in July 2008 and was later expanded. So far, however, researchers have found no evidence that the ban has resulted in a reduction in blood lead levels in condors.

"Unfortunately, even if only a few people are still using lead ammunition, there will be enough contaminated carcasses to cause lead poisoning in a significant number of condors," Finkelstein said. "We found that over the course of ten years, if just one half of one percent of carcasses have lead in them, the probability that each free-flying condor will be exposed is 85 to 98 percent, and one exposure event could kill a condor."

These findings suggest that greater regulation of lead-based ammunition may be necessary to protect condors, she said. Although alternatives to lead ammunition are available, regulations limiting the use of lead-based ammunition face stiff opposition from hunting organizations and gun-rights groups.

In addition to Finkelstein, Smith, Doak, and Grantham, the coauthors of the PNAS paper include Daniel George, condor program manager at Pinnacles National Monument; Joe Burnett of the Ventana Wildlife Society; Joseph Brandt of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service; and Molly Church of the San Diego Zoo's Wildlife Disease Laboratories. This research was supported by the National Park Service, Western National Park Association, and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.

Contact: Tim Stephens
stephens@ucsc.edu
831-459-2495
University of California - Santa Cruz

 

Mystery of the flatfish head solved

		This is a skull of the primitive flatfish Heteronectes, with views of the left- and right-hand sides. The left-hand side shows an eye that has migrated toward the top of the skull, but not reached the other side, in this adult specimen. Image by M. Friedman.

Those delicious flatfishes, like halibut and sole, are also evolutionary puzzles. Their profoundly asymmetrical heads have one of the most unusual body plans among all backboned animals (vertebrates) but the evolution of their bizarre anatomy has long been a mystery. How did flatfishes, with both of their eyes on one side of their head, evolve? So puzzling was the anatomy of flounders and their kin that they were used in early arguments against Darwin and his theory of natural selection. Skeptics wondered how such unusual features could have slowly evolved whilst remaining advantageous for the fishes' survival.

A new fossil discovery described in the latest issue of the Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology by Oxford University researcher Dr Matt Friedman finally solves the mystery. Friedman's fossil fish, named Heteronectes (meaning 'different swimmer'), was found in 50 million year old marine rocks from northern Italy. This study provides the first detailed description of a primitive flatfish, revealing that the migrated eye had not yet crossed to the opposite side of the skull in early members of this group. Heteronectes, with its flattened form, shows the perfect intermediate stage between most fish with eyes on each side of the head and specialized flatfishes where both eyes are on the same side.

"This fossil comes from Bolca in northern Italy, a site that has literally been mined for hundreds of years for its fossil fishes. This remarkable site provides a snapshot of an early coral reef assemblage. Reefs are well known as biodiversity hotspots, so it is perhaps not surprising that Bolca provides us with the first evidence of many modern fish groups," said Friedman. "Our understanding of the relationships of some of these groups is in a state of change with the increasing influx of molecular genetic studies. Fossils have not contributed very much to this debate, but specimens like that of Heteronectes reveal the superb level of detail that can be extracted from extinct species."

		This is the skeleton of the primitive flatfish Heteronectes shown as an x‑ray image (top), photograph before preparation (middle), and photograph after preparation (bottom). Image by M. Friedman

Friedman noted that "The specimen itself was discovered—with no identification—in a museum collection in Vienna. It just goes to show that even well-known fossil sites can yield important surprises, and that not all new discoveries take place in the field."

"This is a profound discovery which clearly shows that intermediate fossil forms, which according to certain creationist theories shouldn't exist, are regularly turning up as scientists keep looking for them," says Dr. John Long of the Natural History Museum of LA County, an expert in fossil fishes who was not involved in the study.

Founded in 1940 by thirty-four paleontologists, the Society now has more than 2,300 members representing professionals, students, artists, preparators, and others interested in VP. It is organized exclusively for educational and scientific purposes, with the object of advancing the science of vertebrate paleontology. The Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology (JVP) is the leading journal of professional vertebrate paleontology and the flagship publication of the Society. It was founded in 1980 by Dr. Jiri Zidek and publishes contributions on all aspects of vertebrate paleontology.

The article appears in the Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology 32(4) published by Taylor and Francis

Citation: Friedman, M. 2012. Osteology of †Heteronectes chaneti (Acanthomorpha, Pleuronectiformes), an Eocene stem flatfish, with a discussion of flatfish sister-group relationships. Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology (32)4: 735-756.

Contact: Cody Mooneyhan
cmooneyhan@faseb.org
301-634-7104
Federation of American Societies for Experimental Biology

Cambodia remains last vulture bastion in Southeast Asia

Wildlife Conservation Society and the Royal Government of Cambodia say that more vulture 'restaurants' and reduction of poison in hunting is critical to saving vultures in Asia

		While vultures across Asia have become nearly extinct in the past few decades, the vultures of Cambodia have persisted. Conservationists say that the creation of new vulture “restaurants” and the restoration of depleted wildlife species in Southeast Asia are the next important steps needed to ensure a future for these ecologically valuable scavengers. Credit: A. Michaud

In face of what has become a precipitous slide toward extinction across the Asian continent, the vultures of Cambodia have persisted, giving conservationists hope that these important scavengers can come back from the brink, according to authors from the Wildlife Conservation Society, the Royal Government of Cambodia, and other groups in a new study.

The creation of new feeding stations, or vulture "restaurants," and the restoration of populations of depleted wildlife species represent the next important steps in vulture conservation, the study says.

The paper appears in the online edition of Bird Conservation International. Authors include: Tom Clements, Martin Gilbert, and Hugo J. Rainey of the Wildlife Conservation Society; Richard Cuthbert of the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds; Jonathan C. Eames of BirdLife International in Indochina; Pech Bunnat and Song Chansocheat of the Ministry of the Environment, Royal Government of Cambodia; Seng Teak of the World Wide Fund for Nature—Cambodia Program; and Tan Setha of the Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry, and Fisheries, Royal Government of Cambodia.

"Results from vulture censuses from the past several years have been encouraging, with new nests recorded and even population increases," said WCS researcher Tom Clements, lead author on the new paper. "With continued investment, these critical populations can survive and grow."

In the study, which began in 2004, the authors collected data from several sites in Cambodia, Lao PDR, and Vietnam through a variety of methods, including monitoring of vulture nesting sites and feeding stations; health assessments of vultures; interviews with government officials, hunters, and wildlife traders to collect data on threats; and satellite transmitter vests on four birds to assess ranging patterns.

The findings: while Cambodia's vulture populations remain robust, the use of poison by hunters and fishers for capturing other species are leading to unintended vulture mortalities. According to the data, 74 percent of the 42 recorded mortalities during the study period were attributable to poison. Direct persecution (the shooting of vultures with guns and slingshots) was also significant, accounting for 10 percent of recorded vulture mortality.

The extreme importance of Cambodia's vulture population was created by an ecological disaster across Asia due largely to the veterinary drug diclofenac. Widely used as an anti-inflammatory drug for cattle in South Asia, diclofenac is toxic to vultures, causing death through renal failure and visceral gout to birds that feed on the cattle carcasses. It has led to a global population declines higher than 99 percent in some vulture species.

So far, the drug has not impacted the vulture populations of Cambodia because diclofenac is not used. WCS and other partners have actually recorded increases in some species of vulture in these areas. However, vultures in Cambodia are largely dependent on domestic animals for food, as populations of wild species such as gaur and Eld's deer remain low.

"Fortunately, the Royal Government of Cambodia has instituted measures to ban diclofenac to ensure the survival of these important birds," said Joe Walston, Director of WCS's Asia Program. "The challenge now is to reduce the indirect and direct persecution of vultures, specifically from poisoning and shooting, and longer-term pressures from habitat loss."

The slender-billed vulture, white-rumped vulture, and red-headed vulture are all listed as "Critically Endangered" by the International Union for Conservation of Nature.

The Cambodia Vulture Conservation Project is a collaboration between the General Department of Administration for Nature Conservation and Protection (GDANCP) of the Ministry of Environment (MoE), the Forestry Administration (FA) of the Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries (MAFF), the Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS), BirdLife International in Indochina, World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF), the Angkor Centre for Conservation of Biodiversity (ACCB) and Wildlife Alliance. This work has been made possible through the generous support of the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds (RSPB), the Disney Worldwide Conservation Fund, the Global Environment Facility – United Nations Development Program, the Darwin Initiative and the Critical Ecosystem Partnership Fund. The Critical Ecosystem Partnership Fund is a joint initiative of l'Agence Française de Développement, Conservation International, the Global Environment Facility, the Government of Japan, the MacArthur Foundation and the World Bank.

Contact: John Delaney
jdelaney@wcs.org
718-220-3275
Wildlife Conservation Society

Fish to Dive For — A New Publication describes over 2500 Reef Fishes, including 25 species new to science

Histiophryne psychedelica - never before published photograph of the recently described "psychedelic frog fish" male incubating eggs attached to its side. © Roger Steene

This three volume book set serves as the most comprehensive guide to reef fishes in the Coral Triangle ever produced, a region known as the global epicenter of marine biodiversity.

Today Conservation International (CI) announced the release of the "Reef Fishes of the East Indies" book set by CI scientists Dr. Gerald Allen and Dr. Mark Erdmann,  representing the culmination of a combined 60 years' of effort to document the biodiversity of the mega-diverse coastal waters of the East Indies.

An essential reference for biologists, naturalists and divers that frequent the region, the "Reef Fishes of the East Indies" is the most up to date guide offering comprehensive information on every known reef fish species from a region known as the global epicenter of marine biodiversity. The book set contains concise descriptions of each of the 2,631 currently known reef fish species from the region, and features over 3,600 colour photographs — of which approximately 40 percent have never before been seen in print. Careful attention to detail has been paid to illustrate the morphological variances between species and within species to differentiate between the sexes, life stages, as well as those species that have multiple regionally-specific colour patterns.

"The need for an up-to-date reference to the reef fishes of this region has been obvious for decades, as scientists have traditionally relied on outdated monumental works such as M. Weber & L.F. de Beaufort's 'Fishes of the Indo-Australian Archipelago', published as 11 volumes between 1911 and 1962. Publishing this book has been a dream I've nurtured since I was a graduate student at the University of Hawaii in the 1960's," said Dr. Gerald Allen, "and I'm proud to note that we've nearly doubled the number of reef fishes previously reported from the region." Allen is an acclaimed author of 35 other guides, but “Reef Fishes of the East Indies” represents his greatest achievement yet, capping a long and illustrious career in ichthyology.

The coverage area of the book includes the Coral Triangle (including Indonesia, the Philippines, Malaysia, Timor Leste, Papua New Guinea, and the Solomon Islands) as well as the South China Sea (including Brunei Darussalam to Vietnam and Singapore), the Andaman Sea (including Thailand, Myanmar, and the Andaman Islands of India) and Christmas Island in the Indian Ocean. It covers all shallow-water (0-75m) reef-associated fish species known from the region, including both obligate reef dwellers and those that are commonly observed passing through reef areas or in the soft bottom areas just adjacent to reefs.

“It's been an honor working with Dr. Allen on what can only be described as his magnum opus, capping an illustrious career in biodiversity studies” said Dr. Mark Erdmann. "We're also delighted to be able to present this reference to governments and universities in the region, who have been invaluable partners in advancing this research. It is our sincere hope that this book will serve as an inspiration for us to appreciate the tremendous marine biodiversity that we are custodians of, and also help to guide governmental efforts to better manage their marine resources for the benefit of their people."

Citation: Allen, G.R. & Erdmann, M.V. 2012. Reef fishes of the East Indies. Volumes I-III. Tropical Reef Research, Perth, Australia. ISBN 978-0-9872600-1-7 (Vol. I), ISBN 978-0-9872600-0-0 (Set)

International distribution is available through the University of Hawaii Press.

Contact:

• Mark Erdmann, Senior Advisor for CI Indonesia Marine Program
• Emmeline Johansen, CI Regional Communications Manager - Asia Pacific