Turning back the tide of biodiversity loss
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CORDIScovery podcast- Episode #45 - Turning back the tide of biodiversity loss
This is an AI transcription.
00:00:10:05 - 00:00:44:24
Abigail Acton
This is CORDIScovery. Hello and welcome to this episode of CORDIScovery with me, Abigail Acton. Biodiversity a key barometer of the planet's health, is under threat from climate change and pressures on natural resources. But it's not all grim news. Science based conservation can step in and halt to decline. In a paper published last year in the journal science, researchers report the results of a global meta analysis of 186 studies comparing changes in biodiversity over time.
00:00:45:05 - 00:01:11:12
Abigail Acton
They looked at areas in which conservation had taken place and those in which there had been no action, showing that biodiversity levels were clearly impacted. They concluded that in two thirds of cases, conservation either improve the state of biodiversity or at least slowed declines. Today we'll journey through rainforests, air and sea to hear about the latest research funded by the EU that's gathering the data we need to make conservation effective.
00:01:11:14 - 00:01:41:24
Abigail Acton
We'll be looking at how parasites are undermining the nutrition that feeds the sea krill. We're considering what the past can teach us about the current state of migratory waterbirds. And we'll be asking what climate change is doing to our rainforests. Based at the French National Research Institute for Sustainable Development. Claire Fortunel is co-leader of a group examining the dynamics of tropical forests at the Joint Research Unit for Botany and Modeling of Plant Architecture and Vegetation in Montpellier.
00:01:42:01 - 00:01:51:15
Abigail Acton
She is particularly interested in understanding tropical forest diversity and functioning, and how these ecosystems will respond to global climate change. Hello, Claire.
00:01:51:17 - 00:01:53:20
Claire Fortunel
Hello, it's great to be here.
00:01:53:22 - 00:02:12:15
Abigail Acton
Very nice to have you. Ada Álvarez-Manzaneda is a fellow at the Department of Ecology at the University of Granada in Spain. She is especially passionate about using palaeoecological approaches to support waterbird conservation, uncovering past environmental patterns to guide future protection efforts. Hello, Ada.
00:02:12:19 - 00:02:13:15
Ada Álvarez-Manzaneda
Hi. How are you?
00:02:13:17 - 00:02:27:22
Abigail Acton
Very well, thank you. Alison Cleary is a molecular ecologist at the British Antarctic Survey. She is keen to improve our understanding of polar marine food webs, and how the interactions between the organisms shape our ecosystems. Hello, Alison.
00:02:28:02 - 00:02:29:12
Alison Cleary
Hello Abigail.
00:02:29:14 - 00:02:54:03
Abigail Acton
Claire, I'm going to turn to you first. The TropDemTrait project wanted to improve our understanding of how the interplay of species traits, tree size, climate, soil and interactions between species impacts tree growth and mortality rates in tropical forests. So, Claire, rainforests are vital for the health of our planet and rich in biodiversity. But can you give us some examples of how healthy rainforests benefit us all?
00:02:54:05 - 00:03:20:07
Claire Fortunel
Of course. I'd like to invite you to picture yourself in the tropical forests. You can hear the many sounds surrounding you, from the howling monkey to the singing birds to chirping insects. Now look at the trees. They can reach up to 50m high, and the system stretching the layers of the forest from the canopy to the industry. And this can influence how trees interact with each other, but also the many species that they can host.
00:03:20:10 - 00:03:48:01
Claire Fortunel
And this includes the microfauna such as the mammals, the birds, but also the microfauna and the microbes that we think less about. And estimating the number of trees is still a very active field of research. And in parallel, the ongoing efforts to better estimate the diversity of the other organisms living in these tropical forests. So now what we know is that we only know the very tip of the screen iceberg of diversity and the operating essential services to human population.
00:03:48:03 - 00:03:50:12
Claire Fortunel
Not only are the locals here, but also globally.
00:03:50:15 - 00:04:07:21
Abigail Acton
Excellent. That's a lovely description and thank you for painting such a beautiful picture. I could almost hear the parrots. So that's fascinating. But we know that the rainforest are threatened by exploitation, mining, logging and clearance for farm and so on. You are interested in the stresses caused by climate change. So? So how did you go about assessing that?
00:04:07:23 - 00:04:30:15
Claire Fortunel
Oh, we still have a limited understanding of how tropical trees live and today. But as tropical forests are facing climate change, we need to clarify how these trees will respond to climate extremes, in particular if we want to better protect them. And to address this question. We studied the variation in tree growth in response to climate anomalies. And as anomalies can be seen as unusually high heat or water stress.
00:04:30:17 - 00:04:52:18
Claire Fortunel
And to test our hypothesis, we used a modeling approach where we can check the effect of different climate stressors on three groups. And thanks to the many collaborators who have collected tree demography data over decades, which means over 50 years before able to compare tree growth response to these climate anomalies across South America, Africa, Southeast Asia and Oceania.
00:04:52:20 - 00:05:04:15
Abigail Acton
So could I just ask you, when you talk about the anomalies, obviously it's fluctuations, extreme fluctuations in weather patterns. You were talking about the collected data from decades ago. What form did that data take?
00:05:04:20 - 00:05:23:11
Claire Fortunel
It looks like a census data. So people going in the field in permanent, what we call forest plots, where every stone that has a certain size, some certain diameter is a position and monitored. So we have their diameter that is measured at regular intervals from which we can measure across increments.
00:05:23:13 - 00:05:34:05
Abigail Acton
Oh, perfect. And then you can tie that in to weather patterns and, and and the data that you have and compare the two together. Excellent. That's excellent. Could you carry on and tell me a little bit more about your methodology. What else did you do.
00:05:34:08 - 00:05:53:09
Claire Fortunel
So we needed to evaluate also this climate anomaly. So for that we had long discussions with climatologists to better understand what climate anomalies actually are and that tied to the biology of the trees. So what did trees experience? And, we came up with several ways of calculating.
00:05:53:09 - 00:05:54:04
Ada Álvarez-Manzaneda
00:05:54:19 - 00:05:59:10
Claire Fortunel
Just different heat and water stress could act directly or indirectly to grove.
00:05:59:16 - 00:06:02:06
Abigail Acton
Okay. Super. And, what did you see?
00:06:02:08 - 00:06:22:14
Claire Fortunel
So what we found is, we can summarize it in two main points. The first one is that across the tropics, we found that, tree growth declined with increasing warmer and drier conditions. And that means that tropical forests worldwide would be severely impacted by climate change and the stresses out the urgency of curbing our global carbon emissions.
00:06:22:14 - 00:06:45:24
Claire Fortunel
If we want to protect these areas. And second, we took a closer look at where exactly the over 100 sites that we studied across the tropics were positioned along a temperature gradient. And what we found was that warmer forests were more sensitive to climate change, that colder forests. And this suggests that these areas may may call for more attention, from our part, if we want to protect them.
00:06:46:05 - 00:07:06:10
Abigail Acton
Because they're more sensitive. Indeed, as you say. Did you find whether other tree species were taking the place of the ones that were dying due to stressors or, that were becoming weaker? In other words, you're describing the trees as getting smaller in diameter and the growth being less marked. That must mean that there's more space for other species to grow.
00:07:06:15 - 00:07:11:07
Abigail Acton
What did you find about the equilibrium between the shrinking and the space left behind the vacuum?
00:07:11:07 - 00:07:37:03
Claire Fortunel
Maybe this is actually a broader question of forest dynamics as a whole. So not only how trees grow, but also how they die. What we find is that overall, over time, we're losing the species that are adapted to wetter climates, at the benefits of those that are better adapted to this warmer and drier conditions. And these are really long term changes because mortality rates in tropical forests are around 1 or 2%.
00:07:37:03 - 00:07:51:05
Claire Fortunel
So literally very few trees actually die. There's very little room for trees are trying to recruit. But still that means that they could be with only 1 or 2%, a lot of changes in the carbon that is being sequestered in the tropical systems.
00:07:51:09 - 00:08:00:03
Abigail Acton
Yes. And also imagine if the species of the trees change, then do the dependent species also change all the organisms that they host? Presumably they're not necessarily the same.
00:08:00:05 - 00:08:23:19
Claire Fortunel
This is a very hot topic of research, as I was mentioning, because we're still looking at estimating the global diversity across, all these trophic levels. But so very much the beginning of understanding what is going on. But yes, there can be cascading effects across trophic food webs. And this could have profound impacts on just tropical diversity and the functioning of physical systems.
00:08:23:24 - 00:08:46:14
Abigail Acton
So thank you so much, Claire. That was really well explained. I really appreciate that, Claire. Studying trees must be quite challenging given that, as you said yourself, you've got 50 years worth of data. It's a slow process. You know, the trees might outlast us or the researchers that are doing the work. So how do you try and get a an idea in a way that sort of speeds up the process so you can comprehend it a little bit more?
00:08:46:16 - 00:08:48:18
Abigail Acton
Well, I would almost say quickly.
00:08:48:20 - 00:09:13:00
Claire Fortunel
This is a huge challenge for ecologists, especially working with trees can be for centuries. One idea we are currently pursuing is to test if, characteristics of trees that we can measure today such as their leaves, their stems or their roots, can inform us on their long term response. So not only growth mortality, but also how to reproduce.
00:09:13:02 - 00:09:19:14
Claire Fortunel
For instance, does the way a leaf handle water stress can help us capture how trees will respond to extreme drought?
00:09:19:16 - 00:09:33:12
Abigail Acton
Okay. That's great. So it's like taking a snapshot of one particular part of the tree to see if you can extrapolate how how it's going to respond more generally. Excellent. Thank you so much, Claire. Thank you very much. Thank you. Does anyone have anything else to add or any observations to make? Yes, Alison.
00:09:33:12 - 00:09:53:23
Alison Cleary
I had a question talking about all of these longer term changes as the temperature warms. Does your data tell you anything about how reversible that would be? Like if we managed to change the trend of climate change and bring temperatures back down, would those trees come back or has is it moving towards a tipping point where it would end up a very different ecosystem?
00:09:54:00 - 00:10:25:06
Claire Fortunel
This is very much an open question, especially in tropical systems. I didn't mention it earlier, but we're also looking at not only a tropical rainforest but other tropical woody system, including savannas. So what we have found so far is that looking at how resilient the tropical trees are to the compounded effects of drought, they're less resilient. That species are found in drier ecosystems, so it may be difficult for them to really come back to a pre- extreme drought.
00:10:25:08 - 00:10:26:06
Claire Fortunel
Stick.
00:10:26:08 - 00:10:42:24
Abigail Acton
Perfect. That's fine. That's excellent. Alison, over to you. Now, the ParaKrill project used new molecular tools to reveal a much higher than expected diversity and prevalence of parasitic infections in krill. So can you tell us about krill? What are they? And why do they matter? Alison.
00:10:43:01 - 00:11:04:21
Alison Cleary
Yeah. So krill are small crustaceans, so they're animals related to shrimp and lobsters. And I focus on Antarctic krill. So when they're full grown, they're about the size of a crayon. And these are really important parts of Southern Ocean food webs because they are prey for the fish, seals, pangolins, flying birds, sort of all of the charismatic Antarctic wildlife.
00:11:05:02 - 00:11:24:19
Alison Cleary
And they're also important in carbon cycling. So when they eat tiny plants near the surface of the water and then poo basically that sinks to the seafloor that transports carbon down and away from the atmosphere. And they're also the target of a growing commercial fishery. So they have an economic role to play as well. So really important animals.
00:11:24:24 - 00:11:29:20
Abigail Acton
And and yeah, clearly. So but what made them important to you. Why did you decide to study krill?
00:11:29:22 - 00:11:48:03
Alison Cleary
They're just fascinating and incredibly beautiful little animals with just intricate, elaborately feathered appendages so well adapted to their habitat. You know, they can feed on ice or sediment or water and they even bioluminescent, they're just amazing.
00:11:48:05 - 00:11:54:21
Abigail Acton
They kind of got everything, Okay. Yeah. Excellent. Super. So what did para krill find out about the relationships between parasites and their hosts?
00:11:55:02 - 00:12:16:15
Alison Cleary
Yeah. So we found, quite a diverse range of parasites, and we found them in, in many of our krill. So we found single celled parasites, things like ciliates, single cells with lots of hairs around them, as well as a group called epi complex, on which they look a bit like peanuts. And we found multicellular parasites. So mostly worms, nematodes and trematodes.
00:12:16:17 - 00:12:26:01
Alison Cleary
And some of these parasites were known to be common krill. Some of them had never been reported from the Antarctic krill, or had only been quite sporadically reported.
00:12:26:03 - 00:12:27:02
Abigail Acton
And why does it matter?
00:12:27:02 - 00:12:48:04
Alison Cleary
So we were looking. That was our second question was do these parasites actually impact the krill? Because if it has a parasite but it doesn't really care, then why bother? So we looked at the krill whether affected how they reproduced and how they grow, and we found that krill, which had a lot of parasites, produced eggs that had less nutrients.
00:12:48:04 - 00:13:09:24
Alison Cleary
So carbon and nitrogen in them, and how much nutrients are in an egg, that's how much resources that embryo has to grow up until it's big enough to fend for itself. So less resources, less, less chance of growing up to be a successful adult. We also found that krill, which have a lot of parasites, grew more slowly. So that means it takes them more time to be big enough to be a good prey for a penguin.
00:13:09:24 - 00:13:14:12
Alison Cleary
For example, and have a different role in these carbon sequestration.
00:13:14:18 - 00:13:34:02
Abigail Acton
Okay, obviously that's pretty fundamental, but how did you go about finding out about these parasites? I'm kind of curious about the method here because I'm saying timing. Okay. Size of a crayon is is actually quite big, but I'm seeing very small little krill kind of growing up or even just sort of in the egg and and. Yeah. How did you work out what was actually inside them?
00:13:34:06 - 00:13:36:24
Abigail Acton
What did you do to find all this out? Allison, tell us more.
00:13:37:01 - 00:13:49:12
Alison Cleary
Yeah. So first we had to catch the krill. So that was in Antarctica with several collaborators helping us on this project. Then we kept krill in this big aquarium. We call it the Krill Hotel.
00:13:49:14 - 00:13:50:00
Abigail Acton
Excellent.
00:13:50:03 - 00:14:09:00
Alison Cleary
It's about the size of the bathtub. And within that hotel, we have hotel rooms, which are small jars with little perforations so that the water can flow through them. So there's one krill in each hotel room. And we check on this multiple times a day. So that lets us measure things like are the krill laying eggs? And what can we learn about the eggs?
00:14:09:02 - 00:14:30:03
Alison Cleary
And also how fast the krill growing. So unlike Claire's trees, our krill can't just grow slowly and gradually. Because they have exoskeletons that don't stretch, they can only grow by shedding the exoskeleton and then making a new, bigger one. So we look for when they shed an exoskeleton, because then you can measure size, the exoskeleton, size of the necro.
00:14:30:09 - 00:14:33:22
Abigail Acton
Right. It's quite convenient, actually. Like like shedding a coat.
00:14:33:24 - 00:14:57:07
Alison Cleary
Exactly. Yeah. So then we take all of our krill back to Cambridge, and we blend them up into a sort of a krill smoothie and extract all the DNA from that. So then we can sequence the DNA, and we include a special custom protein. That means that we don't sequence acrylate cells. So that lets us see everything that's not a krill inside the krill.
00:14:57:09 - 00:15:08:16
Alison Cleary
And you compare our sequences to a database to figure out what all the parasites are within each individual, and then tie that back to things like which eggs did they lay and how fast did they grow?
00:15:08:19 - 00:15:24:23
Abigail Acton
Wonderfully explained. That's excellent. Thank you very much. Alison obviously, you know, as we were saying earlier, krill is a basic food source for so many animals within the ocean. But haven't krill always been subjected to parasites, arent parasites just part of of krill daily life?
00:15:25:00 - 00:15:51:10
Alison Cleary
I think parasites have probably always been part of this food web. So. But one of the questions we're interested in is how might that change? So if changing conditions shift the balance between parasites and their hosts, how does that then affect the ecosystem? So we really wanted to sort of understand fundamentally these interactions between krill and their parasites, so that we can build that into our understanding that we can use for management.
00:15:51:13 - 00:16:10:04
Alison Cleary
Because of course, if we have fewer krill or the killer taking longer to be size, they need to be to be prey. That's going to affect what's available for fish to feed on. For seals to feed on. The Antarctic feels like it's the end of the world, but things in the Antarctic do affect the rest of the planet.
00:16:10:06 - 00:16:22:24
Alison Cleary
So, for example, humpback whales feed really heavily in the Antarctic in the summer, and then many of those migrate north. And Arctic terns are feeding on these Antarctic krill and then migrating north for the winter.
00:16:23:01 - 00:16:30:00
Abigail Acton
Thank you Alison. That was beautifully explained. Thanks very much. I love the idea of a krill hotel. Does anyone have any comments or observations to make for Alison?
00:16:30:06 - 00:16:32:04
Ada Álvarez-Manzaneda
Yeah, I have a question, yes.
00:16:32:04 - 00:16:33:08
Abigail Acton
Yes Ada what's your question?
00:16:33:10 - 00:16:55:09
Ada Álvarez-Manzaneda
So thank you Alison. I would like to ask if did you expect to have different results in other climatic environments? I don't know if they made sense for example is going to be beneficial or so for the parasites. I'm not sure.
00:16:55:11 - 00:17:17:11
Alison Cleary
That’s something that we still don’t really understand. Every organism has the temperatures work functions best. Both parasites and hosts. So as temperatures shift, that balance can shift. But it's it's complicated. It's not sort of a linear projection. And whole communities can be shifting. So definitely something that we're interested in. And we are working with krill from different areas around the Antarctic to compare these areas. But definitely something to keep looking towards in the future.
00:17:17:17 - 00:17:38:10
Abigail Acton
Super. Thank you. Very good question Ada. Thanks very much. And I'm going to turn to you now. Let's talk birds. Inland waters are recognized as important sentinels of climate change, and their sediments accumulate records of past environmental conditions. The PAST project studied the trends and environmental changes to improve our understanding of current challenges faced by migratory water birds.
00:17:38:13 - 00:17:44:08
Abigail Acton
So can you tell us what palaeoecological studies actually are Ada and what can they reveal?
00:17:44:10 - 00:18:19:20
Ada Álvarez-Manzaneda
Yeah, sure. I mean, we can define the palaeoecology as the ecology of the past. So this science gives us information about how we're the systems in the past. And when these, approaches are applied to aquatic environments, they are and this is known as palaeo limnology. Since we have to know that the sediment of the mud in the bottom of the lakes and ponds, act as historical archives of the environmental conditions that happened in the past.
00:18:19:22 - 00:18:32:05
Abigail Acton
Excellent, wonderful. And how do you go about studying the sediments? What what's the process to study the sediments? I'm just seeing a massive amount of of mud. But, I mean, help me to understand better.
00:18:32:07 - 00:19:02:12
Ada Álvarez-Manzaneda
Yeah, sure. I mean, I'm focused on the the study of the population, the changes that happened in the past. In several water birds populations. So the first step is, of course to sample this mud the sediment from the bottom of the lake. So for that we have to use something that is called sediment cord that is a tube that help us to retrieve the sediment from, from there, from the bottom.
00:19:02:14 - 00:19:30:18
Ada Álvarez-Manzaneda
So after we get the the sediment the mud we have to section it because we have to date this. We know that there is a lot of data there a long, long time. So we want to know what was the different, periods of time that are there. So we have to section it by using different intervals. This is going to depend on the resolution that we want to to get.
00:19:30:21 - 00:19:48:17
Ada Álvarez-Manzaneda
And after that we have to freeze-dried the sample that we get the different intervals. And once that we have these, samples, the sediment this mud dried we can now analyze it or process the, the samples for the different analyzes that we are going to do.
00:19:48:18 - 00:19:54:24
Abigail Acton
Okay. And, what what did the analysis show you actually what did you find when you, when you went through that process.
00:19:55:05 - 00:20:34:20
Ada Álvarez-Manzaneda
Yeah. Of course, I mean, the first step is to date the sediment. Sometimes the sediment is very disturbed. So it's like mixed in in that if that happens, it's impossible to to date it because it's all everything is mixed. But after the if the dating is good, we can analyze, for example, one of the main proxies that they used to use is, the diatoms that are some algae that can provide us with some information about past environmental conditions, such as the moisture or the moisture of our nutrients.
00:20:34:20 - 00:20:36:02
Ada Álvarez-Manzaneda
Presence. Okay.
00:20:36:04 - 00:20:40:17
Abigail Acton
Wonderful. So the presence of these little plants, I guess they're plants. Yes. Little tiny plant species.
00:20:40:19 - 00:20:41:10
Ada Álvarez-Manzaneda
Kind of.
00:20:41:13 - 00:20:42:05
Abigail Acton
Kind of.
00:20:42:05 - 00:20:48:05
Ada Álvarez-Manzaneda
They are actually they are plant, but they live in aquatic ecosystems.
00:20:48:05 - 00:21:07:03
Abigail Acton
Yes. Sure. Absolutely. I like it when the edges get blurry. Yeah. So the presence of these, these little plants can tell you, about the environment at that particular period and you've dated it according to the way that you've managed the core. Can I ask you what you learned about the migratory bird populations by doing this?
00:21:07:05 - 00:21:37:15
Ada Álvarez-Manzaneda
Yeah, because I work also for for knowing about, birds or other, let's say, animals we can use an isotope. That is the isotope nitrogen 15. This isotope is increasing by which, every trophic level. So by knowing the, let's say, concentration of this isotope, we know what kind of animals were, there in the, in the pond in this case.
00:21:37:17 - 00:22:01:16
Ada Álvarez-Manzaneda
So by analyzing this, nitrogen system, by comparing this with their information about the moisture that diatoms are giving to us, we can know what was happening in the past, because we can relate that with the dates that we know for sure that these diatoms were present, or this nitrogen 15 was higher or lower.
00:22:01:18 - 00:22:09:10
Abigail Acton
It's wonderful how much this can reveal. And how far did your project actually managed to look back? In other words, what's the sort of earliest data that you have?
00:22:09:12 - 00:22:24:18
Ada Álvarez-Manzaneda
Okay, we used to focus on the, previous, the industrial era, and we have been able to reconstruct, bird populations, longer than 700 years.
00:22:24:18 - 00:22:38:19
Abigail Acton
Oh goodness me. Wow. That's a that's a really good snapshot. And, what are you actually seeing with regards to the changes? I mean, you mentioned pre-industrial and now can you compare what what changes are you seeing in the, in the populations of these migratory birds and what birds are we talking about that are actually for example.
00:22:38:19 - 00:22:53:18
Ada Álvarez-Manzaneda
Yeah. For example, we have been working on the eiders nests by applying in the Arctic, in the Canadian Arctic. That was the first time that this approach was done.
00:22:53:20 - 00:22:55:16
Abigail Acton
So you're looking at the eiders, right? Okay. Yeah.
00:22:55:16 - 00:23:26:02
Ada Álvarez-Manzaneda
Oh, yeah. So in this, in this location, we were working with eiders nest and we saw that, in the past, before having hunting regulations, these, populations were declining and after these hunting regulations that were, done in the 21st century, they were recovering. So we know for sure that hunter regulations are very, very important for these kind of birds.
00:23:26:04 - 00:23:30:18
Abigail Acton
Excellent. So there we have an example of a conservation action that actually turn situation around. Fantastic.
00:23:30:22 - 00:23:31:13
Ada Álvarez-Manzaneda
Okay.
00:23:31:15 - 00:23:35:02
Abigail Acton
And what else can you say about populations. What else have you learned.
00:23:35:04 - 00:23:45:22
Ada Álvarez-Manzaneda
Yeah, we can know also if some, climate change or environmental changes were happening at that time and how they affect it to this bird populations.
00:23:45:24 - 00:23:46:24
Abigail Acton
And what did you see.
00:23:47:01 - 00:24:21:13
Ada Álvarez-Manzaneda
Yeah. For example, mid winters in Canada after the little Ice Age era where good were beneficial for these birds because, they were also, let's say, the ice cover was smallest or thinner and let's say so they were, further than these other animals that they can eat them and also, they were growing more and more and they increased the occupation of the nests.
00:24:21:15 - 00:24:30:18
Abigail Acton
Fantastic. Okay. That's super with the eiders. That's wonderful. Okay. Any the other results that really seem to you to be quite surprising or interesting that you would like to share with us.
00:24:30:23 - 00:24:58:13
Ada Álvarez-Manzaneda
Oh, yeah. Sure. I mean, we workied also in other, another area in the Canadian Arctic as well. And we saw that after the, human populations where living there were moving around the bird populations in that area where, declining as well, not only because of their hunting or something, because they were disturbing these birds.
00:24:58:19 - 00:25:03:17
Ada Álvarez-Manzaneda
So, also, of course, because of the pollutions on their land that is also bad for the birds.
00:25:03:17 - 00:25:20:08
Abigail Acton
Yeah. I mean, of course you can measure that in the deposits easily. I would imagine the presence of land that's fascinating. Thank you so much. So it's interesting to see how much the sediments can actually show us about what was going on before we were even beginning to make records. That's excellent. And then, of course, you can compare it with the dynamics now.
00:25:20:10 - 00:25:26:09
Abigail Acton
Very good. Thank you so much. Does anyone have any comments or observations to make for Ada. Yes, Claire, what would you like to ask?
00:25:26:14 - 00:25:32:15
Claire Fortunel
It's a really fascinating insight into long term bird change, population changes.
00:25:32:15 - 00:25:33:02
Ada Álvarez-Manzaneda
Thank you.
00:25:33:04 - 00:25:45:04
Claire Fortunel
I was wondering if you I mean, you have, limited information you can get from your own sample if you could go back in time, what would you like most to learn? Like if you could measure something new?
00:25:45:06 - 00:25:46:07
Ada Álvarez-Manzaneda
Wow.
00:25:46:09 - 00:25:47:06
Abigail Acton
That's a lovely question.
00:25:47:07 - 00:26:27:07
Ada Álvarez-Manzaneda
Yeah. It is, I am not sure. Maybe. Yeah. For sure. The increase in the human population, how that affected the different ecosystems that were around. And also for sure, because we know that everything is connected. You know, Claire was talking about the, the trees. Alison was talking about the krill. So everything is connected, and I would like to try to link everything, like, okay, we know that if there are no trees, some birds are going to be to decline for sure because they use them for nesting or as, shelter.
00:26:27:09 - 00:26:44:15
Ada Álvarez-Manzaneda
So, I would like I would love to connect everything on how maybe we also have been beneficial or so for some kind of species. But on the other side we were detrimental for other species. So I would love to, but it's very tricky for sure.
00:26:44:16 - 00:27:01:15
Abigail Acton
Oh yeah, that's massively ambitious. But it's a wonderful goal. And I think, I think everyone who gets involved in biodiversity, that's the fundamental goal, isn't it, to understand the interactions on a wider scale. Yeah. Wonderful. Well, listen, I want to thank the three of you for sharing your fascinating work. I'm so glad we managed to come at this from different elements, as it were.
00:27:01:17 - 00:27:06:04
Abigail Acton
So that's great. Thank you very much for your time. You've explained your work very, very well.
00:27:06:06 - 00:27:08:04
All
Thank you. Thank you for the invitation.
00:27:08:10 - 00:27:08:19
Abigail Acton
You're very welcome.
00:27:09:03 - 00:27:13:07
Claire Fortunel
Thank you so much for this very exciting exchanges. I learned so much from you all.
00:27:13:12 - 00:27:15:22
Abigail Acton
We all did. Thank you. Good bye.
00:27:15:22 - 00:27:19:11
Ada Álvarez-Manzaneda
Bye. Take care. Bye bye.
00:27:20:14 - 00:27:45:13
Abigail Acton
If you've enjoyed this podcast, follow us on Spotify and Apple Podcasts or whichever services you use. And check out the podcast homepage on the Cordis website. Subscribe to make sure the hottest research and EU funded science isn't passing you by. And if you are enjoying listening, why not spread the word? In past episodes, we've explored how drones can help prevent fires on ferries and how babies perceive objects moving towards them on a screen.
00:27:45:15 - 00:28:05:24
Abigail Acton
In our last 44 episodes, they'll be something that to tweak your curiosity. The Cordis website has articles and interviews that explore the results of research being conducted in a very broad range of domains and subjects, from fishing to phishing. There's something there for you. Maybe you're involved in a project or would like to apply for funding. Take a look at what others are doing in your domain.
00:28:06:00 - 00:28:18:17
Abigail Acton
So come and check out the latest research that's revealing what makes our world tick. We're always happy to hear from you! Drop us a line and editorial@cordis.europa.eu. Until next time
This is an AI transcription.
00:00:10:05 - 00:00:44:24
Abigail Acton
This is CORDIScovery. Hello and welcome to this episode of CORDIScovery with me, Abigail Acton. Biodiversity a key barometer of the planet's health, is under threat from climate change and pressures on natural resources. But it's not all grim news. Science based conservation can step in and halt to decline. In a paper published last year in the journal science, researchers report the results of a global meta analysis of 186 studies comparing changes in biodiversity over time.
00:00:45:05 - 00:01:11:12
Abigail Acton
They looked at areas in which conservation had taken place and those in which there had been no action, showing that biodiversity levels were clearly impacted. They concluded that in two thirds of cases, conservation either improve the state of biodiversity or at least slowed declines. Today we'll journey through rainforests, air and sea to hear about the latest research funded by the EU that's gathering the data we need to make conservation effective.
00:01:11:14 - 00:01:41:24
Abigail Acton
We'll be looking at how parasites are undermining the nutrition that feeds the sea krill. We're considering what the past can teach us about the current state of migratory waterbirds. And we'll be asking what climate change is doing to our rainforests. Based at the French National Research Institute for Sustainable Development. Claire Fortunel is co-leader of a group examining the dynamics of tropical forests at the Joint Research Unit for Botany and Modeling of Plant Architecture and Vegetation in Montpellier.
00:01:42:01 - 00:01:51:15
Abigail Acton
She is particularly interested in understanding tropical forest diversity and functioning, and how these ecosystems will respond to global climate change. Hello, Claire.
00:01:51:17 - 00:01:53:20
Claire Fortunel
Hello, it's great to be here.
00:01:53:22 - 00:02:12:15
Abigail Acton
Very nice to have you. Ada Álvarez-Manzaneda is a fellow at the Department of Ecology at the University of Granada in Spain. She is especially passionate about using palaeoecological approaches to support waterbird conservation, uncovering past environmental patterns to guide future protection efforts. Hello, Ada.
00:02:12:19 - 00:02:13:15
Ada Álvarez-Manzaneda
Hi. How are you?
00:02:13:17 - 00:02:27:22
Abigail Acton
Very well, thank you. Alison Cleary is a molecular ecologist at the British Antarctic Survey. She is keen to improve our understanding of polar marine food webs, and how the interactions between the organisms shape our ecosystems. Hello, Alison.
00:02:28:02 - 00:02:29:12
Alison Cleary
Hello Abigail.
00:02:29:14 - 00:02:54:03
Abigail Acton
Claire, I'm going to turn to you first. The TropDemTrait project wanted to improve our understanding of how the interplay of species traits, tree size, climate, soil and interactions between species impacts tree growth and mortality rates in tropical forests. So, Claire, rainforests are vital for the health of our planet and rich in biodiversity. But can you give us some examples of how healthy rainforests benefit us all?
00:02:54:05 - 00:03:20:07
Claire Fortunel
Of course. I'd like to invite you to picture yourself in the tropical forests. You can hear the many sounds surrounding you, from the howling monkey to the singing birds to chirping insects. Now look at the trees. They can reach up to 50m high, and the system stretching the layers of the forest from the canopy to the industry. And this can influence how trees interact with each other, but also the many species that they can host.
00:03:20:10 - 00:03:48:01
Claire Fortunel
And this includes the microfauna such as the mammals, the birds, but also the microfauna and the microbes that we think less about. And estimating the number of trees is still a very active field of research. And in parallel, the ongoing efforts to better estimate the diversity of the other organisms living in these tropical forests. So now what we know is that we only know the very tip of the screen iceberg of diversity and the operating essential services to human population.
00:03:48:03 - 00:03:50:12
Claire Fortunel
Not only are the locals here, but also globally.
00:03:50:15 - 00:04:07:21
Abigail Acton
Excellent. That's a lovely description and thank you for painting such a beautiful picture. I could almost hear the parrots. So that's fascinating. But we know that the rainforest are threatened by exploitation, mining, logging and clearance for farm and so on. You are interested in the stresses caused by climate change. So? So how did you go about assessing that?
00:04:07:23 - 00:04:30:15
Claire Fortunel
Oh, we still have a limited understanding of how tropical trees live and today. But as tropical forests are facing climate change, we need to clarify how these trees will respond to climate extremes, in particular if we want to better protect them. And to address this question. We studied the variation in tree growth in response to climate anomalies. And as anomalies can be seen as unusually high heat or water stress.
00:04:30:17 - 00:04:52:18
Claire Fortunel
And to test our hypothesis, we used a modeling approach where we can check the effect of different climate stressors on three groups. And thanks to the many collaborators who have collected tree demography data over decades, which means over 50 years before able to compare tree growth response to these climate anomalies across South America, Africa, Southeast Asia and Oceania.
00:04:52:20 - 00:05:04:15
Abigail Acton
So could I just ask you, when you talk about the anomalies, obviously it's fluctuations, extreme fluctuations in weather patterns. You were talking about the collected data from decades ago. What form did that data take?
00:05:04:20 - 00:05:23:11
Claire Fortunel
It looks like a census data. So people going in the field in permanent, what we call forest plots, where every stone that has a certain size, some certain diameter is a position and monitored. So we have their diameter that is measured at regular intervals from which we can measure across increments.
00:05:23:13 - 00:05:34:05
Abigail Acton
Oh, perfect. And then you can tie that in to weather patterns and, and and the data that you have and compare the two together. Excellent. That's excellent. Could you carry on and tell me a little bit more about your methodology. What else did you do.
00:05:34:08 - 00:05:53:09
Claire Fortunel
So we needed to evaluate also this climate anomaly. So for that we had long discussions with climatologists to better understand what climate anomalies actually are and that tied to the biology of the trees. So what did trees experience? And, we came up with several ways of calculating.
00:05:53:09 - 00:05:54:04
Ada Álvarez-Manzaneda
00:05:54:19 - 00:05:59:10
Claire Fortunel
Just different heat and water stress could act directly or indirectly to grove.
00:05:59:16 - 00:06:02:06
Abigail Acton
Okay. Super. And, what did you see?
00:06:02:08 - 00:06:22:14
Claire Fortunel
So what we found is, we can summarize it in two main points. The first one is that across the tropics, we found that, tree growth declined with increasing warmer and drier conditions. And that means that tropical forests worldwide would be severely impacted by climate change and the stresses out the urgency of curbing our global carbon emissions.
00:06:22:14 - 00:06:45:24
Claire Fortunel
If we want to protect these areas. And second, we took a closer look at where exactly the over 100 sites that we studied across the tropics were positioned along a temperature gradient. And what we found was that warmer forests were more sensitive to climate change, that colder forests. And this suggests that these areas may may call for more attention, from our part, if we want to protect them.
00:06:46:05 - 00:07:06:10
Abigail Acton
Because they're more sensitive. Indeed, as you say. Did you find whether other tree species were taking the place of the ones that were dying due to stressors or, that were becoming weaker? In other words, you're describing the trees as getting smaller in diameter and the growth being less marked. That must mean that there's more space for other species to grow.
00:07:06:15 - 00:07:11:07
Abigail Acton
What did you find about the equilibrium between the shrinking and the space left behind the vacuum?
00:07:11:07 - 00:07:37:03
Claire Fortunel
Maybe this is actually a broader question of forest dynamics as a whole. So not only how trees grow, but also how they die. What we find is that overall, over time, we're losing the species that are adapted to wetter climates, at the benefits of those that are better adapted to this warmer and drier conditions. And these are really long term changes because mortality rates in tropical forests are around 1 or 2%.
00:07:37:03 - 00:07:51:05
Claire Fortunel
So literally very few trees actually die. There's very little room for trees are trying to recruit. But still that means that they could be with only 1 or 2%, a lot of changes in the carbon that is being sequestered in the tropical systems.
00:07:51:09 - 00:08:00:03
Abigail Acton
Yes. And also imagine if the species of the trees change, then do the dependent species also change all the organisms that they host? Presumably they're not necessarily the same.
00:08:00:05 - 00:08:23:19
Claire Fortunel
This is a very hot topic of research, as I was mentioning, because we're still looking at estimating the global diversity across, all these trophic levels. But so very much the beginning of understanding what is going on. But yes, there can be cascading effects across trophic food webs. And this could have profound impacts on just tropical diversity and the functioning of physical systems.
00:08:23:24 - 00:08:46:14
Abigail Acton
So thank you so much, Claire. That was really well explained. I really appreciate that, Claire. Studying trees must be quite challenging given that, as you said yourself, you've got 50 years worth of data. It's a slow process. You know, the trees might outlast us or the researchers that are doing the work. So how do you try and get a an idea in a way that sort of speeds up the process so you can comprehend it a little bit more?
00:08:46:16 - 00:08:48:18
Abigail Acton
Well, I would almost say quickly.
00:08:48:20 - 00:09:13:00
Claire Fortunel
This is a huge challenge for ecologists, especially working with trees can be for centuries. One idea we are currently pursuing is to test if, characteristics of trees that we can measure today such as their leaves, their stems or their roots, can inform us on their long term response. So not only growth mortality, but also how to reproduce.
00:09:13:02 - 00:09:19:14
Claire Fortunel
For instance, does the way a leaf handle water stress can help us capture how trees will respond to extreme drought?
00:09:19:16 - 00:09:33:12
Abigail Acton
Okay. That's great. So it's like taking a snapshot of one particular part of the tree to see if you can extrapolate how how it's going to respond more generally. Excellent. Thank you so much, Claire. Thank you very much. Thank you. Does anyone have anything else to add or any observations to make? Yes, Alison.
00:09:33:12 - 00:09:53:23
Alison Cleary
I had a question talking about all of these longer term changes as the temperature warms. Does your data tell you anything about how reversible that would be? Like if we managed to change the trend of climate change and bring temperatures back down, would those trees come back or has is it moving towards a tipping point where it would end up a very different ecosystem?
00:09:54:00 - 00:10:25:06
Claire Fortunel
This is very much an open question, especially in tropical systems. I didn't mention it earlier, but we're also looking at not only a tropical rainforest but other tropical woody system, including savannas. So what we have found so far is that looking at how resilient the tropical trees are to the compounded effects of drought, they're less resilient. That species are found in drier ecosystems, so it may be difficult for them to really come back to a pre- extreme drought.
00:10:25:08 - 00:10:26:06
Claire Fortunel
Stick.
00:10:26:08 - 00:10:42:24
Abigail Acton
Perfect. That's fine. That's excellent. Alison, over to you. Now, the ParaKrill project used new molecular tools to reveal a much higher than expected diversity and prevalence of parasitic infections in krill. So can you tell us about krill? What are they? And why do they matter? Alison.
00:10:43:01 - 00:11:04:21
Alison Cleary
Yeah. So krill are small crustaceans, so they're animals related to shrimp and lobsters. And I focus on Antarctic krill. So when they're full grown, they're about the size of a crayon. And these are really important parts of Southern Ocean food webs because they are prey for the fish, seals, pangolins, flying birds, sort of all of the charismatic Antarctic wildlife.
00:11:05:02 - 00:11:24:19
Alison Cleary
And they're also important in carbon cycling. So when they eat tiny plants near the surface of the water and then poo basically that sinks to the seafloor that transports carbon down and away from the atmosphere. And they're also the target of a growing commercial fishery. So they have an economic role to play as well. So really important animals.
00:11:24:24 - 00:11:29:20
Abigail Acton
And and yeah, clearly. So but what made them important to you. Why did you decide to study krill?
00:11:29:22 - 00:11:48:03
Alison Cleary
They're just fascinating and incredibly beautiful little animals with just intricate, elaborately feathered appendages so well adapted to their habitat. You know, they can feed on ice or sediment or water and they even bioluminescent, they're just amazing.
00:11:48:05 - 00:11:54:21
Abigail Acton
They kind of got everything, Okay. Yeah. Excellent. Super. So what did para krill find out about the relationships between parasites and their hosts?
00:11:55:02 - 00:12:16:15
Alison Cleary
Yeah. So we found, quite a diverse range of parasites, and we found them in, in many of our krill. So we found single celled parasites, things like ciliates, single cells with lots of hairs around them, as well as a group called epi complex, on which they look a bit like peanuts. And we found multicellular parasites. So mostly worms, nematodes and trematodes.
00:12:16:17 - 00:12:26:01
Alison Cleary
And some of these parasites were known to be common krill. Some of them had never been reported from the Antarctic krill, or had only been quite sporadically reported.
00:12:26:03 - 00:12:27:02
Abigail Acton
And why does it matter?
00:12:27:02 - 00:12:48:04
Alison Cleary
So we were looking. That was our second question was do these parasites actually impact the krill? Because if it has a parasite but it doesn't really care, then why bother? So we looked at the krill whether affected how they reproduced and how they grow, and we found that krill, which had a lot of parasites, produced eggs that had less nutrients.
00:12:48:04 - 00:13:09:24
Alison Cleary
So carbon and nitrogen in them, and how much nutrients are in an egg, that's how much resources that embryo has to grow up until it's big enough to fend for itself. So less resources, less, less chance of growing up to be a successful adult. We also found that krill, which have a lot of parasites, grew more slowly. So that means it takes them more time to be big enough to be a good prey for a penguin.
00:13:09:24 - 00:13:14:12
Alison Cleary
For example, and have a different role in these carbon sequestration.
00:13:14:18 - 00:13:34:02
Abigail Acton
Okay, obviously that's pretty fundamental, but how did you go about finding out about these parasites? I'm kind of curious about the method here because I'm saying timing. Okay. Size of a crayon is is actually quite big, but I'm seeing very small little krill kind of growing up or even just sort of in the egg and and. Yeah. How did you work out what was actually inside them?
00:13:34:06 - 00:13:36:24
Abigail Acton
What did you do to find all this out? Allison, tell us more.
00:13:37:01 - 00:13:49:12
Alison Cleary
Yeah. So first we had to catch the krill. So that was in Antarctica with several collaborators helping us on this project. Then we kept krill in this big aquarium. We call it the Krill Hotel.
00:13:49:14 - 00:13:50:00
Abigail Acton
Excellent.
00:13:50:03 - 00:14:09:00
Alison Cleary
It's about the size of the bathtub. And within that hotel, we have hotel rooms, which are small jars with little perforations so that the water can flow through them. So there's one krill in each hotel room. And we check on this multiple times a day. So that lets us measure things like are the krill laying eggs? And what can we learn about the eggs?
00:14:09:02 - 00:14:30:03
Alison Cleary
And also how fast the krill growing. So unlike Claire's trees, our krill can't just grow slowly and gradually. Because they have exoskeletons that don't stretch, they can only grow by shedding the exoskeleton and then making a new, bigger one. So we look for when they shed an exoskeleton, because then you can measure size, the exoskeleton, size of the necro.
00:14:30:09 - 00:14:33:22
Abigail Acton
Right. It's quite convenient, actually. Like like shedding a coat.
00:14:33:24 - 00:14:57:07
Alison Cleary
Exactly. Yeah. So then we take all of our krill back to Cambridge, and we blend them up into a sort of a krill smoothie and extract all the DNA from that. So then we can sequence the DNA, and we include a special custom protein. That means that we don't sequence acrylate cells. So that lets us see everything that's not a krill inside the krill.
00:14:57:09 - 00:15:08:16
Alison Cleary
And you compare our sequences to a database to figure out what all the parasites are within each individual, and then tie that back to things like which eggs did they lay and how fast did they grow?
00:15:08:19 - 00:15:24:23
Abigail Acton
Wonderfully explained. That's excellent. Thank you very much. Alison obviously, you know, as we were saying earlier, krill is a basic food source for so many animals within the ocean. But haven't krill always been subjected to parasites, arent parasites just part of of krill daily life?
00:15:25:00 - 00:15:51:10
Alison Cleary
I think parasites have probably always been part of this food web. So. But one of the questions we're interested in is how might that change? So if changing conditions shift the balance between parasites and their hosts, how does that then affect the ecosystem? So we really wanted to sort of understand fundamentally these interactions between krill and their parasites, so that we can build that into our understanding that we can use for management.
00:15:51:13 - 00:16:10:04
Alison Cleary
Because of course, if we have fewer krill or the killer taking longer to be size, they need to be to be prey. That's going to affect what's available for fish to feed on. For seals to feed on. The Antarctic feels like it's the end of the world, but things in the Antarctic do affect the rest of the planet.
00:16:10:06 - 00:16:22:24
Alison Cleary
So, for example, humpback whales feed really heavily in the Antarctic in the summer, and then many of those migrate north. And Arctic terns are feeding on these Antarctic krill and then migrating north for the winter.
00:16:23:01 - 00:16:30:00
Abigail Acton
Thank you Alison. That was beautifully explained. Thanks very much. I love the idea of a krill hotel. Does anyone have any comments or observations to make for Alison?
00:16:30:06 - 00:16:32:04
Ada Álvarez-Manzaneda
Yeah, I have a question, yes.
00:16:32:04 - 00:16:33:08
Abigail Acton
Yes Ada what's your question?
00:16:33:10 - 00:16:55:09
Ada Álvarez-Manzaneda
So thank you Alison. I would like to ask if did you expect to have different results in other climatic environments? I don't know if they made sense for example is going to be beneficial or so for the parasites. I'm not sure.
00:16:55:11 - 00:17:17:11
Alison Cleary
That’s something that we still don’t really understand. Every organism has the temperatures work functions best. Both parasites and hosts. So as temperatures shift, that balance can shift. But it's it's complicated. It's not sort of a linear projection. And whole communities can be shifting. So definitely something that we're interested in. And we are working with krill from different areas around the Antarctic to compare these areas. But definitely something to keep looking towards in the future.
00:17:17:17 - 00:17:38:10
Abigail Acton
Super. Thank you. Very good question Ada. Thanks very much. And I'm going to turn to you now. Let's talk birds. Inland waters are recognized as important sentinels of climate change, and their sediments accumulate records of past environmental conditions. The PAST project studied the trends and environmental changes to improve our understanding of current challenges faced by migratory water birds.
00:17:38:13 - 00:17:44:08
Abigail Acton
So can you tell us what palaeoecological studies actually are Ada and what can they reveal?
00:17:44:10 - 00:18:19:20
Ada Álvarez-Manzaneda
Yeah, sure. I mean, we can define the palaeoecology as the ecology of the past. So this science gives us information about how we're the systems in the past. And when these, approaches are applied to aquatic environments, they are and this is known as palaeo limnology. Since we have to know that the sediment of the mud in the bottom of the lakes and ponds, act as historical archives of the environmental conditions that happened in the past.
00:18:19:22 - 00:18:32:05
Abigail Acton
Excellent, wonderful. And how do you go about studying the sediments? What what's the process to study the sediments? I'm just seeing a massive amount of of mud. But, I mean, help me to understand better.
00:18:32:07 - 00:19:02:12
Ada Álvarez-Manzaneda
Yeah, sure. I mean, I'm focused on the the study of the population, the changes that happened in the past. In several water birds populations. So the first step is, of course to sample this mud the sediment from the bottom of the lake. So for that we have to use something that is called sediment cord that is a tube that help us to retrieve the sediment from, from there, from the bottom.
00:19:02:14 - 00:19:30:18
Ada Álvarez-Manzaneda
So after we get the the sediment the mud we have to section it because we have to date this. We know that there is a lot of data there a long, long time. So we want to know what was the different, periods of time that are there. So we have to section it by using different intervals. This is going to depend on the resolution that we want to to get.
00:19:30:21 - 00:19:48:17
Ada Álvarez-Manzaneda
And after that we have to freeze-dried the sample that we get the different intervals. And once that we have these, samples, the sediment this mud dried we can now analyze it or process the, the samples for the different analyzes that we are going to do.
00:19:48:18 - 00:19:54:24
Abigail Acton
Okay. And, what what did the analysis show you actually what did you find when you, when you went through that process.
00:19:55:05 - 00:20:34:20
Ada Álvarez-Manzaneda
Yeah. Of course, I mean, the first step is to date the sediment. Sometimes the sediment is very disturbed. So it's like mixed in in that if that happens, it's impossible to to date it because it's all everything is mixed. But after the if the dating is good, we can analyze, for example, one of the main proxies that they used to use is, the diatoms that are some algae that can provide us with some information about past environmental conditions, such as the moisture or the moisture of our nutrients.
00:20:34:20 - 00:20:36:02
Ada Álvarez-Manzaneda
Presence. Okay.
00:20:36:04 - 00:20:40:17
Abigail Acton
Wonderful. So the presence of these little plants, I guess they're plants. Yes. Little tiny plant species.
00:20:40:19 - 00:20:41:10
Ada Álvarez-Manzaneda
Kind of.
00:20:41:13 - 00:20:42:05
Abigail Acton
Kind of.
00:20:42:05 - 00:20:48:05
Ada Álvarez-Manzaneda
They are actually they are plant, but they live in aquatic ecosystems.
00:20:48:05 - 00:21:07:03
Abigail Acton
Yes. Sure. Absolutely. I like it when the edges get blurry. Yeah. So the presence of these, these little plants can tell you, about the environment at that particular period and you've dated it according to the way that you've managed the core. Can I ask you what you learned about the migratory bird populations by doing this?
00:21:07:05 - 00:21:37:15
Ada Álvarez-Manzaneda
Yeah, because I work also for for knowing about, birds or other, let's say, animals we can use an isotope. That is the isotope nitrogen 15. This isotope is increasing by which, every trophic level. So by knowing the, let's say, concentration of this isotope, we know what kind of animals were, there in the, in the pond in this case.
00:21:37:17 - 00:22:01:16
Ada Álvarez-Manzaneda
So by analyzing this, nitrogen system, by comparing this with their information about the moisture that diatoms are giving to us, we can know what was happening in the past, because we can relate that with the dates that we know for sure that these diatoms were present, or this nitrogen 15 was higher or lower.
00:22:01:18 - 00:22:09:10
Abigail Acton
It's wonderful how much this can reveal. And how far did your project actually managed to look back? In other words, what's the sort of earliest data that you have?
00:22:09:12 - 00:22:24:18
Ada Álvarez-Manzaneda
Okay, we used to focus on the, previous, the industrial era, and we have been able to reconstruct, bird populations, longer than 700 years.
00:22:24:18 - 00:22:38:19
Abigail Acton
Oh goodness me. Wow. That's a that's a really good snapshot. And, what are you actually seeing with regards to the changes? I mean, you mentioned pre-industrial and now can you compare what what changes are you seeing in the, in the populations of these migratory birds and what birds are we talking about that are actually for example.
00:22:38:19 - 00:22:53:18
Ada Álvarez-Manzaneda
Yeah. For example, we have been working on the eiders nests by applying in the Arctic, in the Canadian Arctic. That was the first time that this approach was done.
00:22:53:20 - 00:22:55:16
Abigail Acton
So you're looking at the eiders, right? Okay. Yeah.
00:22:55:16 - 00:23:26:02
Ada Álvarez-Manzaneda
Oh, yeah. So in this, in this location, we were working with eiders nest and we saw that, in the past, before having hunting regulations, these, populations were declining and after these hunting regulations that were, done in the 21st century, they were recovering. So we know for sure that hunter regulations are very, very important for these kind of birds.
00:23:26:04 - 00:23:30:18
Abigail Acton
Excellent. So there we have an example of a conservation action that actually turn situation around. Fantastic.
00:23:30:22 - 00:23:31:13
Ada Álvarez-Manzaneda
Okay.
00:23:31:15 - 00:23:35:02
Abigail Acton
And what else can you say about populations. What else have you learned.
00:23:35:04 - 00:23:45:22
Ada Álvarez-Manzaneda
Yeah, we can know also if some, climate change or environmental changes were happening at that time and how they affect it to this bird populations.
00:23:45:24 - 00:23:46:24
Abigail Acton
And what did you see.
00:23:47:01 - 00:24:21:13
Ada Álvarez-Manzaneda
Yeah. For example, mid winters in Canada after the little Ice Age era where good were beneficial for these birds because, they were also, let's say, the ice cover was smallest or thinner and let's say so they were, further than these other animals that they can eat them and also, they were growing more and more and they increased the occupation of the nests.
00:24:21:15 - 00:24:30:18
Abigail Acton
Fantastic. Okay. That's super with the eiders. That's wonderful. Okay. Any the other results that really seem to you to be quite surprising or interesting that you would like to share with us.
00:24:30:23 - 00:24:58:13
Ada Álvarez-Manzaneda
Oh, yeah. Sure. I mean, we workied also in other, another area in the Canadian Arctic as well. And we saw that after the, human populations where living there were moving around the bird populations in that area where, declining as well, not only because of their hunting or something, because they were disturbing these birds.
00:24:58:19 - 00:25:03:17
Ada Álvarez-Manzaneda
So, also, of course, because of the pollutions on their land that is also bad for the birds.
00:25:03:17 - 00:25:20:08
Abigail Acton
Yeah. I mean, of course you can measure that in the deposits easily. I would imagine the presence of land that's fascinating. Thank you so much. So it's interesting to see how much the sediments can actually show us about what was going on before we were even beginning to make records. That's excellent. And then, of course, you can compare it with the dynamics now.
00:25:20:10 - 00:25:26:09
Abigail Acton
Very good. Thank you so much. Does anyone have any comments or observations to make for Ada. Yes, Claire, what would you like to ask?
00:25:26:14 - 00:25:32:15
Claire Fortunel
It's a really fascinating insight into long term bird change, population changes.
00:25:32:15 - 00:25:33:02
Ada Álvarez-Manzaneda
Thank you.
00:25:33:04 - 00:25:45:04
Claire Fortunel
I was wondering if you I mean, you have, limited information you can get from your own sample if you could go back in time, what would you like most to learn? Like if you could measure something new?
00:25:45:06 - 00:25:46:07
Ada Álvarez-Manzaneda
Wow.
00:25:46:09 - 00:25:47:06
Abigail Acton
That's a lovely question.
00:25:47:07 - 00:26:27:07
Ada Álvarez-Manzaneda
Yeah. It is, I am not sure. Maybe. Yeah. For sure. The increase in the human population, how that affected the different ecosystems that were around. And also for sure, because we know that everything is connected. You know, Claire was talking about the, the trees. Alison was talking about the krill. So everything is connected, and I would like to try to link everything, like, okay, we know that if there are no trees, some birds are going to be to decline for sure because they use them for nesting or as, shelter.
00:26:27:09 - 00:26:44:15
Ada Álvarez-Manzaneda
So, I would like I would love to connect everything on how maybe we also have been beneficial or so for some kind of species. But on the other side we were detrimental for other species. So I would love to, but it's very tricky for sure.
00:26:44:16 - 00:27:01:15
Abigail Acton
Oh yeah, that's massively ambitious. But it's a wonderful goal. And I think, I think everyone who gets involved in biodiversity, that's the fundamental goal, isn't it, to understand the interactions on a wider scale. Yeah. Wonderful. Well, listen, I want to thank the three of you for sharing your fascinating work. I'm so glad we managed to come at this from different elements, as it were.
00:27:01:17 - 00:27:06:04
Abigail Acton
So that's great. Thank you very much for your time. You've explained your work very, very well.
00:27:06:06 - 00:27:08:04
All
Thank you. Thank you for the invitation.
00:27:08:10 - 00:27:08:19
Abigail Acton
You're very welcome.
00:27:09:03 - 00:27:13:07
Claire Fortunel
Thank you so much for this very exciting exchanges. I learned so much from you all.
00:27:13:12 - 00:27:15:22
Abigail Acton
We all did. Thank you. Good bye.
00:27:15:22 - 00:27:19:11
Ada Álvarez-Manzaneda
Bye. Take care. Bye bye.
00:27:20:14 - 00:27:45:13
Abigail Acton
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00:27:45:15 - 00:28:05:24
Abigail Acton
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00:28:06:00 - 00:28:18:17
Abigail Acton
So come and check out the latest research that's revealing what makes our world tick. We're always happy to hear from you! Drop us a line and editorial@cordis.europa.eu. Until next time
Evidence-based action saves species
Biodiversity, a key barometer of the planet’s health, is under threat from climate change and pressures on natural resources. But it is not all grim news: science-based conservation can step in and halt a decline. In a paper(opens in new window) published in 2024 in the journal ‘Science’, researchers report the results of a global, meta-analysis of 186 studies comparing changes in biodiversity over time. They compared areas in which conservation had taken place, and those in which there had been no action, showing that biodiversity levels were clearly impacted. They concluded that in two thirds of cases, conservation either improved the state of biodiversity or at least slowed declines. Today we’ll journey through rainforests, air and sea to hear about the latest research funded by the EU, that is gathering the data we need to make conservation effective. We’ll be looking at how parasites are undermining the nutrition that feeds the sea: krill. We are considering what the past can teach us about the current state of migratory waterbirds, and we will be asking what climate change is doing to our rain forests. Based at the French National Research Institute for Sustainable Development, Claire Fortunel(opens in new window) is co-leader of a group examining the dynamics of tropical forests at the Joint Research Unit for Botany and Modelling of Plant Architecture and Vegetation(opens in new window), in Montpellier. She is particularly interested in understanding tropical forest diversity and functioning, and how these ecosystems will respond to global change. She coordinated the TropDemTrait project. Alison Cleary(opens in new window) is a molecular ecologist at the British Antarctic Survey(opens in new window). She is keen to improve our understanding of polar marine food webs, and how the interactions between organisms shape ecosystems which she investigated in the ParaKrill project. Ada Álvarez-Manzaneda(opens in new window) is a fellow at the Department of Ecology(opens in new window) at the University of Granada, in Spain. She is especially passionate about using palaeoecological approaches to support waterbird conservation, uncovering past environmental patterns to guide future protection efforts – something she explored in the PAST project.
Happy to hear from you!
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Keywords
ParaKrill, TropDemTrait, PAST, birds, krill, rain forests, biodiversity, migratory waterbirds, climate change