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We’re sorry, but 50/500 is still too few
Some of you who are familiar with my colleagues’ and my work will know that we have been investigating the minimum viable population size concept for years (see references at the end of this post)....
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50/500 or 100/1000 debate not about time frame
As you might recall, Dick Frankham, Barry Brook and I recently wrote a review in Biological Conservation challenging the status quo regarding the famous 50/500 ‘rule’ in conservation management...
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High-altitude ecology
A constant hazard in the Tibetan Plateau – yakjam I’ve been out of the social-media loop for a few weeks, hence the abnormally long interval since my last post. As you might recall, I’ve been...
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Avoiding genetic rescue not justified on genetic grounds
I had the pleasure today of reading a new paper by one of the greatest living conservation geneticists, Dick Frankham. As some of CB readers might remember, I’ve also published some papers with Dick...
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Outright bans of trophy hunting could do more harm than good
In July 2015 an American dentist shot and killed a male lion called ‘Cecil’ with a hunting bow and arrow, an act that sparked a storm of social media outrage. Cecil was a favourite of tourists visiting...
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Getting your conservation science to the right people
A perennial lament of nearly every conservation scientist — at least at some point (often later in one’s career) — is that the years of blood, sweat and tears spent to obtain those precious results...
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Genetic Management of Fragmented Animal and Plant Populations
That is the title of a new textbook that will be available mid-2017. After almost 6 years work, authors Dick Frankham, Jonathan Ballou, Katherine Ralls, Mark Eldridge, Michele Dudash, Charles Fenster,...
View ArticleWhy populations can’t be saved by a single breeding pair
I published this last week on The Conversation, and now reproducing it here for CB.com readers. — Two days ago, the last male northern white rhino (Ceratotherium simum cottoni) died. His passing...
View ArticleError-free genetic repositories: case of amphibians
In our new study, we curated > 39,000 amphibian mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) sequences from GenBank, identified > 2,000 sequencing and taxonomic errors, and published the quality-checked records as...
View ArticleNew journal: Frontiers in Conservation Science
Several months ago, Daniel Blumstein of UCLA approached me with an offer — fancy leading a Special Section in a new Frontiers journal dedicated to conservation science? I admit that my gut reaction was...
View ArticleSmart genetic analysis made fast and easy
If you use genetics to differentiate populations, the new package smartsnp might be your new friend. Written in R language and available from GitHub and CRAN, this package does principal component...
View ArticleCan we resurrect the thylacine? Maybe, but it won’t help the global...
(published first on The Conversation) Last week, researchers at the University of Melbourne announced that thylacines or Tasmanian tigers, the Australian marsupial predators extinct since the 1930s,...
View ArticleShould we bring back the thylacine? We asked 5 experts
Signe Dean, The Conversation In a newly announced partnership with Texas biotech company Colossal Biosciences, Australian researchers are hoping their dream to bring back the extinct thylacine is a...
View ArticleInfluential conservation papers of 2022
Following my annual tradition, I present the retrospective list of the ‘top’ 20 influential papers of 2022 as assessed by experts in Faculty Opinions (formerly known as F1000). These are in no...
View ArticleOpen Letter: Public policy in South Australia regarding dingoes
08 August 2023 The Honourable Dr Susan Close MP, Deputy Premier and Minister for Climate, Environment and Water, South Australia The Honourable Claire Scriven MLC, Minister for Primary Industries and...
View ArticleNew ecosystems, unprecedented climates: more Australian species than ever are...
Australia is home to about one in 12 of the world’s species of animals, birds, plants and insects – between 600,000 and 700,000 species. More than 80% of Australian plants and mammals and just under...
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The colour of survival
In boreal forests, many hares adopt white winter coats before the snow arrives. In a snowless landscape, these white hares lack camouflage against predators. However, their early moult from brown into...
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Genetics to the rescue
Procreating with a relative is taboo in most human societies for many reasons, but they all stem from avoiding one thing in particular — inbreeding increases the risk of genetic disorders that can...
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