barcoding and conservation

Question 1

CITES

Answer 1

• established in 1975 by the International Union for Conservation and Nature (IUCN)
• Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora
• nations can sign up to this resource and they are provided with a a framework to develop conservation laws
• aims to prevent the trade of plants and animals from threatening survival

Question 2

whaling

Answer 2

• worldwide moratorium 1982
• coastal and pelagic commercial whaling banned 1986
• hunting for scientific reasons is still allowed, which is often exploited by countries
• Japan kills whales for scientific purposes in the Southern Ocean
• whales killed for scientific purposes cannot be wasted, so they end up in the human food chain in Japan
• Iceland and Norway rejected the moratorium, hunting still takes place in the North Atlantic

Question 3

whaling, using barcoding in wildlife forensics

Answer 3

• only non-endangered species such as the Minke whale are allowed to be killed for scientific purposes
• early studies collected samples from markets globally where whale meat is legally sold
• only 50% samples were from legally hunted species of whales, Baleen whale samples found (including blue whales, endangered)
• illegal trade of whale meat between the US, Japan and South Korea also found
• used genetic markers sensitive enough to differentiate between closely related species (mutate at a fast enough rate)

Question 4

elephant tusks

Answer 4

• population of elephants decreased from 10m in 1930 to 415,000
• main reasons are habitat loss, interactions with humans and ivory poaching
• on IUCN red list, classed as vulnerable
• large market in South East Asia and China, used for furniture and medicinally
• trade of ivory banned in China
• trade in antique and legal (animal died of natural causes) in the UK has driven demand, increasing poaching

Question 5

identifying the origin of illegal tusks

Answer 5

• differentiating between ivory from different geographical locations to determine what populations poachers are targeting
• simple sequence repeats/ microsatellite regions used
• 16 of these genetic regions in elephants give a good differentiation between geographical regions
• 80% of samples could be traced to within 932km of their origin

Question 6

simple sequence repeats/ microsatellite regions

Answer 6

• regions of DNA that are repeated multiple times in all higher beings
• these regions can fold back on themselves during DNA replication because of how similar they are
• DNA polymerase then often adds or deletes repeats
• creates highly variable regions of DNA between populations
• used in forensics and paternity tests in humans

Question 7

bushmeat

Answer 7

• wide range of wild species hunted to be sold as meat
• common in tropical Africa, Latin American and Asia
• biodiversity threat as hunters ‘hunt down the body size’ once larger animals have been hunted out of the area
• rapid ID method needed due to volume of samples and particular threatened species
• primer cocktail needed as a wide range of species are involved
• species ID from traders highly inaccurate and difficult to distinguish once cooked
• identifying unknown species and particular populations

Question 8

real time PCR (qPCR)

Answer 8

• include fluorescent dye into DNA
• can then monitor whether PCR is amplifying by monitoring if fluorescent signal is accumulating
• using only primers from a particular species means it’s a quick ID method for species of particular conservation concern
  e.g. Capercaillies

Question 9

traditional Chinese medicine

Answer 9

• include highly endangered species
• often dried and ground up so difficult to ID
• ID is also needed for consumer safety
• processing of animal degrades DNA so minibarcoding is used (shorter regions of DNA, shorter primers used)
• several minibarcode sequences can generate a species-level ID
• a number of different animals ground up together also requires metabarcoding using NGS so the sequences don’t overlap