#conservation physiology

Earth Overshoot Day marks the day when humanity has used more resources from nature that our planet can renew in the course of a year. In 2000, Earth Overshoot Day fell today, 23rd  September. This year, 2018, the date receded to 1st August.

Is there a way we can live in harmony with our Earth and #movethedate? Can the Anthropocene – the era of humans – be ‘good’?

Today is Shark Awareness Day – not a day to fear sharks, but a day to highlight the importance of conserving this mighty beast of the deep, as the various species of shark in existence are more likely to be harmed by humans than we are by them.

In some Asian countries, shark fin soup is in demand. Thanks to this demand, many sharks are endangered, so the harvesting of some endangered shark species has been banned. However, these banned sharks are still being harvested and sold, with over half of shark species traded in Brazil found to be endangered.

How do traders get away with this? Answer: by removing fins, heads, or any other identifying features of the species.

Researchers are on the case: a team of scientists have proposed using ‘DNA barcoding’ to identify illegally traded sharks. Just as a barcode scanner can be used to identify different products in a shop, so can scientists use short sequences of DNA to identify different species of sharks, and use this evidence to save the sharks from illegal trading.

We all know dogs are man’s best friend, but they may be whales’ best friends also.

In a recent study, dogs were trained to detect whale poo, which scientists discovered could be used to determine the whale’s physiology including its sex and reproductive state. This data could be used to aid whale conservation efforts – dogs remaining the true heroes of the piece, of course.

Did you know female elephants express higher stress levels than male elephants?

Over the course of five years, scientists followed Asian elephants in the wild and freeze-dried their dung. After measuring the hormone levels in 300 dung samples, the researchers found higher levels of glucocorticoids – hormones secreted due to stress – in the dung of female elephants. The researchers say all other mammals would show a similar trend.

It was also discovered that stress levels peaked in all elephants during the dry season, when resources are low and survival is therefore harder.

Happy World Elephant Day! These magnificent creatures are as mighty as they are beautiful. They are also incredibly fascinating. We’ve gathered some of the most interesting elephant facts we could find:

Elephants can live for more than 60 years, but not many long-term studies have been conducted on them.

Elephants likely flap their ears as a heat dissipation technique.

There is much debate about what happens to an elephant’s body when it dies.

Female elephants take care of each other’s’ young, which strengthens their social network.

Female African elephants have to forage longer than males to meet their nutritional demands.

Female African elephants of an older age and a higher social standing reproduce less frequently than younger elephants lower on the social ladder.

African elephants are adept at altering their behaviour based on the climate, allowing them to maintain their optimum body temperature even when environmental temperature exceeds 40°C.

The weight and stress levels of Asian elephants are connected to population mortality and birth rates: as mortality rates increase, elephant weight decreases, and as birth rates rise, an elephant’s stress level is lowered.

What if the coupling of pandas is more similar to that of humans than we thought, requiring matchmaking efforts such as those made by dating websites?

Following the failure of traditional breeding methods, including pairing male and female pandas based on their genetic difference, some scientists wondered whether matching pandas based on their personality could prompt reproduction. Four main personality types were identified in a group of pandas: exploratory, aggressiveness, excitability, and fearfulness. The study found that certain combinations of personality types in panda partners could increase reproduction rates, for example low-aggression females and high-aggression males.

In the difficult decision of which dating site is best, it seems this study proves personality-based sites are the key to success rather than appearance-based apps such as Tinder, at least for pandas.

Each organism has a limit of tolerance to cold and hot temperatures. So, the closer it lives to those limits, the higher the chances of experiencing thermal stress and potentially dying. In our recent paper, we revise gaps in the knowledge of tolerance to high temperatures in cold-blooded animals (ectotherms), a diverse group mostly including amphibians and reptiles (> 16,000 species), fish (>…