Biophilia Programme - Finding Nemo

The morning started out with a nice view of the seashore exposed by the low tide (0.3m). The sky was clear and the sound of the ebbing waves beckoned.


The students were to carry out their transect study. I was with a group of them when they set up a 40 m long line transect across the intertidal zone. It must have been one of those fulfilling days as a bio teacher. The sun, the sand and the ebbing waves washing at our ankles as we looked for yet one more creature to surprise us with its existence in its strange form. The day's new creature of the day started off with the slender seamoth.

Its not uncommon on these fieldtrips to the shore to hear students go "wow" in amazement at an entirely new creature they have seen.... Come to think of it.. how many times in our lives do we come across anything really new in the flesh.



The slender seamoth was really calm as we comtemplated it... see the shadows of our heads hovering over it as we trained camera lenses on it. We pondered over whether it was a stargazer or seawasp.

That's the 40m transect which took a group an hour plus to complete documenting the creatures they saw.


And here's a makeshift square transect that the group who had done were particularly proud of.


The low tide really exposed a lot of creatures and lots of carpet anemones were exposed in those pools. It was with Mr Nah's patience and keen eye that we spotted the prawn that was swimming within those tentacles of one. And soon enough what must have been quite the highlight of the day was to spot a clownfish, at home within the tentacle of the carpet anemone. Now, we have seen Nemo in aquarium and the movies, but to come across on in situ was a different thing all together... we all beamed at such a discovery.



It must have been on of the most fulfilling visits to that fieldsite. I think partly it could be attributed to the fact that we set up transects and had a more considered approach to our survey.



We work to the ominous backdrop of mega construction and each time I go there, I half expect the place to be cleared and cordoned off for some pointless attraction. The day that happens, I will be cynical, for I have come to know of creatures who await discovery by students.

Horseshoe crabs now date back to 445 MYA

"A remarkable new fossil horseshoe crab, Lunataspis aurora gen. et sp. nov., from recently discovered Upper Ordovician (c. 445 Ma) shallow marine Konservat-Lagerstätten deposits in Manitoba (Canada)."

See Rudkin, DM, GA Young & GS Nowlan, 2008. The oldest horseshoe crab: a new Xiphosurid from late Ordovician Konservat-Lagerstätten deposits in Manitoba, Canada. Palaeontology, 51(1): 1-9. and "Oldest Horseshoe Crab Fossil Discovered," by Jeanna Bryner. LiveScience.com, 28 Jan 2008.

This pushes back evidence for the mysterious horseshoe crabs by almost 100 million years, from 350 million to 445 million years ago. Having survived multiple extinction events during its geological existence, but habitat loss and marine pollution have seen significant localised loss of population numbers in some countries.

Present day horseshoe crabs appear to be similar to such fossils and we refer to them as "living fossils". In Singapore, Mandai mangroves appear to be a significant refuge for them. Let's hope we can extend their impressive record a little longer.

Conservation as disequilibrium

After attending a talk by Alan Rabinowitz on how the Hukawng Valley Tiger Reserve, the largest tiger reserve in the world, was set up, one thing he said sticks in my mind. Conservation is a 'dynamic disequilibrium', and the work of tending to it will never come to an end.

Too many people in conservation or interested in the environment think that there will be a stage when we can finish the job and take our hands off and see everything run smoothly, but 'if we don't think the same way about crime and police, why do we think this way about conservation?'

Perhaps conservationists are predisposed to think this way because the idea of conservation is to restore environments and landscapes to a supposed original or pristine state. Whether or not there ever was an original state that would have lasted forever if undisturbed is debatable.

But whatever the case, this does highlight how much work is needed to manage landscapes and the people who have to live in them. The old model of simply setting land aside to lock animals in and peoples out is fundamentally flawed.

Deforestation in Brazil declining... or not?

The Brazilian government has announced a fall in the rate of deforestation in the Amazon for the third year running, ending July 2007. But environmental groups say that this is a 'past achievement' and that rates of deforestation are rising again. And as common sense will tell you, a fall in the rate of deforestation means that deforestation is still going on, just a bit slower.... Read more...

Cure for amphibian chytridiomycosis?

"Frog killer fungus 'breakthrough,'" by Kim Griggs. BBC News, 30 Oct 2007.

New Zealand scientists have claimed that the common antibiotic chloramphenicol can be used to cure amphibians infected with chytridiomycosis, the fungal disease which is causing widespread worldwide decline of amphibian populations and is pushing many endangered frog species to the edge of extinction.

Update: Poster from the team which did the research

Yangtze River Dolphin extinct?

An intensive survey carried out to locate remaining individuals of the critically endangered Yangtze River Dolphin, or baiji, a freshwater dolphin endemic to that river and the only surviving representative of its family, has not been able to find any of the dolphins. According to IUCN criteria, however, this species cannot be formally classed as extinct because Red List rules stipulate that 50 years must have passed since the last verified sighting of the organism. However, very few surveys of such detail have been carried out for the Yangtze River Dolphin, so the IUCN Red List's entry on this dolphin is probably too optimistic in its estimates, and the baiji is probably either gone for good, or with too few numbers in the wild to survive for very much longer.

Numbers of baiji have always been low; estimates in the 1980s ranged from 100 - 400, with sightings of the animals usually in groups, but a more recent survey in 1997-9 sighted just over 20 individuals. This present survey covered the 1669 km length of the Yangtze between Yichang and Shanghai twice, using visual and acoustic methods. The authors point out that the baiji is primarily a victim of 'incidental mortality', unlike other recently extinct or endangered animals, such as the dodo and tiger, which are victims of hunting and trapping. What killed off the dolphin population was a combination of pollution and habitat degradation, as well as accidental killing from booming river shipping traffic and fishing activity.

The fact is that 'even large charismatic and nominally protected animals are still in grave danger of being lost', and just because an animal is on the Red List, is widely known, and is discussed at international meetings or in the media, doesn't mean that anything concrete is being done about its death and decline. In this respect it reminds me of the case of the Indian tiger and how its wild populations may have been systematically underestimated for years, while illegal poaching and trade in tiger parts has still persisted even in supposedly protected wildlife reserves. Furthermore, while the death of a big mammal is a tragic and dramatic wake-up call, it's clear that the extinctions that we're not aware of are still proceeding unabated and will continue to do so even if governments enforce conservation laws more strictly.

Reference: Turvey, S.T. et al. 2007. "First human-caused extinction of a cetacean species?" Biology Letters, 3(5): 537-540; published online: doi:10.1098/rsbl.2007.0292.