Recently, after examining hundreds of photos taken by camera traps set-up to monitor clouded leopards in the park, three Smithsonian researchers say Khao Yai also is quite popular with a different kind of visitor: poachers.

Next to the Eurasian wild pig, humans were the most common creature to show-up in the camera-trap photos, namely villagers, park staff, tourists and poachers, write Kate Jenks, JoGayle Howard and Peter Leimgruber of the Smithsonian Conservation Biology Institute in a recent issue of the journal Biotropica. Humans appeared in photos from 43 of the 217 different sites in the park where the camera traps were set, even though 78 percent of the park is zoned as a strict nature reserve/primitive area.

Images: Right, a clouded leopard in a camera trap photo. Above and below: poachers. (Photos courtesy of Kate Jenks)

Attached to trees in the forest, the camera traps use an infrared beam that can detect motion or a change in temperature to trip the camera’s shutter. The researchers considered humans in the snapshots to be “poachers” only if they were carrying a gun, a carcass or animal parts, a bag to carry forest products and animals; or if they were accompanied by a dog, Jenks explains.

Surprisingly, close analysis of the project’s some 650 photos revealed the presence of poachers very close to Khao Yai’s 21 ranger stations. Few carnivores, such as clouded leopards, were photographed near the stations.

“We expected to find higher carnivore biodiversity near the ranger outposts because those areas should be really well protected,” Leimgruber says. They are not.

In fact, Jenks says, “the ranger stations seem to be having the opposite of their intended effect. Building and staffing the outposts required the construction of roads into the park, which has provided easier access for everyone into the forest.”

This video depicts camera traps being set up in Thailand’s Pang Sida National Park, which is located adjacent to Khao Yai National Park.

In Southeast Asia poaching is fueled by demand from the traditional Chinese medicine trade, trade in wild bush meat for human consumption and forest products the researchers say. In addition, Jenks says, there are villages right up on the boundary of the park with no transition and no buffer zone. It is very easy for villagers to wander into the park.

Jenks, Howard and Leimgruber recommend increased foot patrols by park staff through the forest and continued monitoring of the impact of these foot patrols using the camera traps. Unless the human presence in and impact on the park is reduced, wildlife populations “will only shrink progressively into smaller and smaller core areas of the park” the researchers write.

(JoGayle Howard, a prominent researcher at the National Zoo who had dedicated her life to the study and conservation of endangered species, passed away last year.  She had been instrumental in developing this wildlife conservation project.) –John Barrat

Article link: “Do Ranger Stations Deter Poaching Activity in National Parks in Thailand?” by Kate Jenks, JoGayle Howard and Peter Leimgruber appeared in the scientific journal Biotropica.

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In other words, less than half of the giant panda’s already decreased habitat will be suitable to sustain them in 70 years. The research team used two different global climate models to make this prediction, taking into account remaining habitat, lost habitat, potential new habitat and current protected areas for giant pandas.

The study also found that habitat fragmentation will likely increase, leading to smaller areas that can support fewer pandas farther away from each other, increasing the risks of inbreeding and population collapse.

“Our research predicts that climate change will substantially decrease the amount of suitable giant panda habitat within the species’ current distribution,” said Melissa Songer, lead author of the paper and an SCBI wildlife ecologist. “But also we may see new areas becoming suitable for giant pandas,” Songer adds. “The question remains as to whether giant pandas will have the capacity and opportunity to shift to new areas.”

In addition to calling for the development of more protected areas that are aligned with climate predictions, the paper emphasizes the importance of creating corridors to reduce fragmentation. The study also has land-use implications, as agricultural land and land near human settlements are unsuitable for pandas.

Photos: Giant pandas at the Smithsonian’s National Zoo.

In addition to Songer, the authors of the panda ecology study from SCBI are Melanie Delion and Alex Biggs. The partnering author is Qiongyu Huang in the geography department at the University of Maryland. Friends of the National Zoo helped fund this research.

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Image right: Kwame in 2007 (Mehgan Murphy photo). Image below: Kojo in 2005 (Photo by Ann Batdorf); Image bottom: Kwame in 2007 (Mehgan Murphy photo)

On Feb. 2, Zoo veterinarians inserted an Implantable Loop Recorder beneath Kojo’s skin and between his shoulder blades. Kwame’s procedure took place on March 14. About the size of a USB drive, the ILR records electrocardiogram waves and allows animal care staff to analyze trends in the gorillas’ heart rates, rhythms, strengths and timing of electrical pulses.

“The Great Ape Heart Project is at the forefront of combating heart disease in gorillas, and we are honored to be one of the first institutions participating in this innovative research,” said National Zoo Director Dennis Kelly. “We hope that the information we learn will benefit this species and many others as well.”

Image left: Gorilla keeper Becky Malinksy trains Kwame to present different parts of his body, specifically his back, so that she can download data from the Implantable Loop Recorder.

Kwame and Kojo are ideal candidates for this study; they are clinically healthy yet the odds that they will develop heart disease later in life are high because of how common the disease is in gorillas. The Great Ape Heart Project chose them for another reason, as well: the Zoo’s training program allows animal care staff to monitor an animal’s health, administer medical procedures and provide preventive care without the use of anesthesia or restraints. Kwame and Kojo willingly present their backs to keepers Amanda Bania and Becky Malinsky on cue as part of everyday training. This ensures veterinarians will be able to scan the ILR, collect data and monitor trends in the gorillas’ health. The data will be shared among institutions and facilities that care for these primates. In addition, keepers will continue behavioral research projects and look for physical changes in Kwame and Kojo’s health.

“Even minute changes in their EKG waves could signal the onset of heart disease,” said Suzan Murray, chief veterinarian and head of the Zoo’s Department of Animal Health. “Detection is a major step in combating the disease.”

The notion of using ILRs in gorillas was first introduced by Dr. Ilana Kutinsky, co-director of the Great Ape Heart Project. As a cardiac electrophysiologist whose expertise lies in human medicine, she has seen ILRs save human lives.

“To ensure that these fascinating animals are around for generations to come, we must do everything possible to give them the best quality of life,” Kutinsky said. “Ultimately, this device will help improve great ape longevity in zoos.”

Kutinsky attended Kojo’s surgery and assisted Zoo veterinary staff. Murray and Kutinsky are two of the four scientists who have been at the forefront of gorilla heart disease for over a decade. The other doctors are Hayley Murphy and Pam Dennis.

In human care, western lowland gorillas can live to be upwards of 50 years old. In its native tropical forests of Western and Central Africa, however, a gorilla’s lifespan is about 35 years. Increased hunting, outbreaks of the Ebola virus and poorly regulated development projects threaten these great apes as well as their habitats. The International Union for Conservation of Nature lists the western lowland gorilla as critically endangered.

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In about six weeks, keepers will separate the chicks from their parents, and Zoo veterinarians will perform a routine medical exam and take feather samples to determine their sexes.

(Guam rail photos by Jim Jenkins, FONZ Photo Club)

To date, 82 chicks have hatched at the Zoo and SCBI, and each provides scientists with the opportunity to learn about the growth, reproduction, health and behavior of the species. The Zoo sent 29 Guam rails to the government of Guam for release and breeding, and an additional 25 birds have gone to other institutions to breed.

Guam rails flourished in Guam’s limestone forests and coconut plantations until the arrival of the brown tree snake (Boiga irregularis), an invasive species that stowed away in military equipment shipped from New Guinea after World War II. Because these reptiles had no natural predators on Guam, their numbers grew and they spread across the island quickly. Within three decades, they hunted Guam rails and eight other bird species to the brink of extinction.

In 1986, Guam’s Department of Aquatic and Wildlife Resources captured the country’s remaining 21 Guam rails and sent them to zoological institutions around the globe—including the National Zoo—as a hedge against extinction. The Association of Zoos and Aquariums created a Species Survival Plan for the birds. The SSP pairs males and females in order to maintain a genetically diverse and self-sustaining population.

Today, 118 Guam rails are thriving on two islands near the mainland: Rota and Cocos. The availability of release sites continues to shrink, however, due to deforestation and human expansion. Controlling the brown snake population remains a significant challenge as well, though researchers have made progress in developing a variety of barriers, traps and toxicants. Forty-four birds reside in zoos and other facilities in North America. Visitors to the Smithsonian’s National Zoo can see these birds on exhibit in the Bird House. In stark contrast to their brown-and-white-plumaged parents, Guam rail chicks sport black downy feathers.

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The rate of new marine invasions along U.S. coasts has risen sharply in recent decades due to human-aided introductions, often unintentional. Organisms can attach directly to the hulls of ships or be taken up and transported in ballast water (water used by large ships to provide stability and trim during sailing). They can also be introduced with imports of seafood, bait and packing materials. In addition, some species have been deliberately introduced to create new fisheries, though this practice is now very rare. As trade and globalization have increased, so has the opportunity for invasions.

No part of the country is untouched by non-native species. Although most people recognize a few of the common and conspicuous invaders in nearby waters, the full scope of invasions that lurk beneath the water often go unnoticed.

Image left: Chinese mitten crab.

NEMESIS aims to provide comprehensive and synthetic information on hundreds of individual marine species in the continental United States. Created by SERC’s marine invasions lab, the database includes information on how and when invasions occurred, distribution maps and what is known about their impacts. For example, the tunicate Didemnum vexillum (commonly known as D. vex or “rock vomit”) has created serious problems on the West and East Coasts of the United States. This mat-like species grows rapidly and can completely cover aquaculture nets, shellfish beds and sensitive marine environments. The database also includes an interactive map of the U.S., where visitors can search for invaders impacting their own coastlines.

NEMESIS launched March 5 with tunicates, a group that includes the destructive rock vomit. Tunicates, also known as ascidians or sea squirts, are filter feeders that grow on hard surfaces such as docks, rocks or sandy marine sediments. Information for other groups of species will become publicly available over the next year as NEMESIS continues its rollout, starting with crabs, shrimp and crayfish.

NEMESIS was designed in partnership with the U.S. Geological Survey. NEMESIS focuses on invasions in marine and estuarine waters, while the USGS Nonindigenous Aquatic Species database focuses on invasions in freshwater habitats of the U.S. The complementary databases were designed to be compatible, allowing for joint syntheses across marine and freshwater habitats in the U.S.

The NEMESIS database is a long-term and dynamic program that will continue to grow over time. Records are updated regularly as new species are discovered and new research becomes available. For more information on NEMESIS or recent updates, visit the NEMESIS home page and the NEMESIS Interactive Invasions Map.

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Moray eel. Moray eels are legendary predators on coral reefs. Note the second set of jaws in the “throat”; these are the gill arches, which are present in all fish. Gill arches support the gills, the major respiratory organ of fish.

Lookdown. Because of its sloped head and the enlarged crest on its skull, the Lookdown appears to “look down” as it swims. These fish often swim in small schools.

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Alligator Pipefish. Pipefish may be thought of as seahorses unfurled. The numerous bony body rings are used to differentiate one species of pipefish from another.

Ox-eyed Oreo. The name Oreosoma (“mountain body”) refers to the cone-shaped bony structures on the underside of this larval specimen. Adults are more elongate, less oval, and covered with scales.

Dhiho’s Seahorse. Just over one inch long, this elegant fish is readily identified as a seahorse by its characteristic head. The body ends in a tail that can curl around and hold on to algae or coral. This species is found only in the waters around Japan.

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Roughly 10 percent of all plant species are orchids, making them the largest plant family on Earth. But habitat loss has rendered many threatened or endangered. This is partly due to their intimate relationship with the soil. Orchids depend entirely on microscopic fungi in the early stages of their lives. Without the nutrients orchids obtain by digesting these host fungi, their seeds often will not germinate and baby orchids will not grow. While researchers have known about the orchid-fungus relationship for years, very little is known about what the fungi need to survive.

Image right and below: Flowers (right) and leaves (below) of the orchid Goodyera pubescens, commonly known as the downy rattlesnake orchid, endangered in Florida. (Photos by Melissa McCormick/SERC)

Biologists based at the Smithsonian Environmental Research Center in Edgewater, Md., launched the first study to find out what helps the fungi flourish and what that means for orchids. Led by Melissa McCormick, the researchers looked at three orchid species, all endangered in one or more U.S. states. After planting orchid seeds in dozens of experimental plots, they also added particular host fungi needed by each orchid to half of the plots. Then they followed the fate of the orchids and fungi in six study sites: three in younger forests (50 to 70 years old) and three in older forests (120 to 150 years old).

Image right and below: Leaf (right)  and flowers (below) of Tipularia discolor, the cranefly orchid, endangered in New York and Massachusetts, and threatened in Michigan and Florida.

After four years they discovered orchid seeds germinated only where the fungi they needed were abundant—not merely present. In the case of one species, Liparis liliifolia (lily-leaved twayblade), seeds germinated only in plots where the team had added fungi. This suggests that this particular orchid could survive in many places, but the fungi they need do not exist in most areas of the forest.

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Image left: A desert tortoise, Gopherus agassizii. (Image by Mike Jones, courtesy Encyclopedia of Life)

“Roads are barriers to dispersal for lots of species and usually it takes many generations to show up in the genetic structure of an animal,” says one of the paper’s co-authors Emily Latch, a postdoctoral researcher at the Smithsonian Conservation Biology Institute’s Center for Conservation and Evolutionary Genetics, and now an assistant professor at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee. “Because tortoises have such a long life span, we didn’t think the roads would influence their genetic structure so quickly, but they did.”

The study shows for the first time that recent landscape features such as roads “can have rapid effects on the genetic structure of a localized population and are detectible almost immediately,” in as little as one generation, the scientists report. As a result, the scientists conclude, “Roads may become increasingly important in shaping the evolutionary trajectory of desert tortoise populations.”

For the study, DNA samples were taken from 859 tortoises living in an area of 23,969 acres. “A huge number of samples,” for such a small area, Latch says. Data also was taken on each animal’s sex, location, and location elevation and slope.

Image right: A tortoise in the Mojave Desert. (Image courtesy Wikipedia)

The tortoises were sampled as part of a tortoise relocation effort at Fort Irwin Army Training Center and the animals were located by having people walk map transects in the desert. They picked-up, labeled and took data and DNA samples for every tortoise encountered.

“The adult individuals were initially genotyped to develop a baseline genetic database of translocated and resident tortoises so that family groups hatched after the translocations could be identified to particular parents, and the reproductive success of translocated and resident tortoises compared,” says Smithsonian geneticist Rob Fleischer, head of the Center for Conservation and Evolutionary Genetics and senior author on the paper. “This is important to determine if translocation is really an effective mitigation step. It was serendipity that led to our finding a surprising level of genetic structure.”

Roads may inhibit gene flow in desert tortoises by the reptiles being hit by cars, picked up by travelers, and predation and disease associated with pets released by the roadside. Eroded banks and increased vegetation along desert roads also may provide places for the tortoises to burrow and forage for food, causing them to move along a road rather than to cross it.

The article “Fine-Scale Analysis Reveals Cryptic Landscape Genetic Structure in Desert Tortoises,” by Emily K. Latch, William I. Boarman, Andrew Walde, and Robert C. Fleischer appeared recently in the journal PLoS ONE.

-John Barrat

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Image left: A desert tortoise, Gopherus agassizii.  (Image by Mike Jones, courtesy Encyclopedia of Life)

“Roads are barriers to dispersal for lots of species and usually it takes many generations to show up in the genetic structure of an animal,” says one of the paper’s co-authors Emily Latch, a postdoctoral researcher at the Smithsonian Conservation Biology Institute’s Center for Conservation and Evolutionary Genetics, and now an assistant professor at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee. “Because tortoises have such a long life span, we didn’t think the roads would influence their genetic structure so quickly, but they did.”

The study shows for the first time that recent landscape features such as roads “can have rapid effects on the genetic structure of a localized population and are detectible almost immediately,” in as little as one generation, the scientists report. As a result, the scientists conclude, “Roads may become increasingly important in shaping the evolutionary trajectory of desert tortoise populations.”

For the study, DNA samples were taken from 859 tortoises living in an area of 23,969 acres. “A huge number of samples,” for such a small area, Latch says. Data also was taken on each animal’s sex, location, and location elevation and slope.

Image right: A tortoise in the Mojave Desert. (Image courtesy Wikipedia)

The tortoises were sampled as part of a tortoise relocation effort at Fort Irwin Army Training Center and the animals were located by having people walk map transects in the desert. They picked-up, labeled and took data and DNA samples for every tortoise encountered.

“The adult individuals were initially genotyped to develop a baseline genetic database of translocated and resident tortoises so that family groups hatched after the translocations could be identified to particular parents, and the reproductive success of translocated and resident tortoises compared,” says Smithsonian geneticist Rob Fleischer, head of the Center for Conservation and Evolutionary Genetics and senior author on the paper. “This is important to determine if translocation is really an effective mitigation step. It was serendipity that led to our finding a surprising level of genetic structure.”

Roads may inhibit gene flow in desert tortoises by the reptiles being hit by cars, picked up by travelers, and predation and disease associated with pets released by the roadside. Eroded banks and increased vegetation along desert roads also may provide places for the tortoises to burrow and forage for food, causing them to move along a road rather than to cross it.

The article “Fine-Scale Analysis Reveals Cryptic Landscape Genetic Structure in Desert Tortoises,” by Emily K. Latch, William I. Boarman, Andrew Walde, and Robert C. Fleischer appeared recently in the journal PLoS ONE.

-John Barrat

Related posts:

1. Why did the tortoise cross the road? A recent study indicates few do.
2. New study reveals desert tortoise is actually two distinct species
3. Genetic study confirms American crocodiles and critically endangered Cuban crocodiles are hybridizing in the wild