researcher have picture out how to supervise the hereditary health of endangered whale sharks without ever touching them — by testing the waters they swim in . They described their progress in the journalNature Ecology & Evolution .
keep lozenge on endangered beast is an essential part of keeping them safe . Yet our current monitoring methods are imperfect at best . Some , like aerial monitoring , depend on decipherable weather and good visibility . Others , like tagging , can really offend [ PDF ] the animals they ’re meant to protect . It ’s meter to find Modern ways to search out for our fellow animal .
One external research team came up with an interesting melodic theme : rather than taking tissue paper sample from whale shark ’ bodies , what about test the environment in which they drown ?
field of study generator and geneticist Philip Francis Thomsen of the Natural History Museum of Denmark has been investigating the various manipulation of environmental DNA ( eDNA ) for the last few years . He and his colleagues found thattesting the wateris a outstanding agency to help scientistsidentify and countits piscine inhabitants . But they ’d never used eDNA to examine a given fish population ’s genetics — that is , how the members of the mathematical group are relate to one another and others in their species .
Thomsen and an international squad of his peers move to a web site in the Persian Gulf where whale sharks wish to congregate . First , they counted the number of fins at the surface to estimate how many shark were around . Then they collected 20 diminished sample of seawater and small tissue samples from the shark so they could equate their results .
They sequence the DNA find in the tissue paper samples and the deoxyribonucleic acid in the water and found that the two pay similar result . By combining these genetic family trees with their observations of the internet site , the research worker were able to gauge the number of sharks present . They found that the shark in the disconnect were more tight related to other universe in the Indian and Pacific Oceans than they were to Atlantic whale shark .
There ’s more body of work still to be done , the authors write , but this hands - off method shows a lot of promise . Whale shark , if you ’re read this : We ’ll keep you posted .
