This article was first featured hakai magazine, Online publication on coastal ecosystem science and society. To read more articles like this, go to hakaimagazine.com.
scat. guano. shit. poop. Everyone makes it and scientists love it too. Because once you get past the smell, feces becomes a treasure trove of information.
Scientists are already using scat to track the health of endangered species such as: killer whale.Meanwhile, otter excrement helps scientists understand how important Nutrients move through ocean and terrestrial food webs. And in new researchScientists have outlined another great use for poop. It is a non-invasive way to measure the age of Indo-Pacific bottlenose dolphins.
Researchers have several ways to calculate the age of marine mammals, but the techniques can be quite cumbersome. One is to capture marine mammals, extract their teeth, and measure the growth layer of dentin. It’s similar to counting the rings of a tree. Another strategy, known as the epigenetic clock, is to look at how an animal’s DNA changes over its lifetime. a process called methylation. It typically requires a skin sample, which scientists take with a rifle or crossbow.
Although tooth extractions are mostly safe, they do pose a risk of infection and other health problems. As with skin tissue harvesting, it is also stressful for the animal. Stressing animals can not only change their health and behavior, but also change scientists’ understanding of their natural ecology, says Genfu Yagi, lead author of the new paper. . studyis pursuing a PhD at Mie University, Japan.
“Therefore, a non-invasive age estimation method is needed,” Yagi said in an email.
solution? Please collect the trash instead.
Studies published in 2019 and 2020 revealed that epigenetic clock technology used to calculate an animal’s age from skin samples also works with fecal samples. However, those researchers sampled chimpanzee and Japanese macaque feces. Would it work for marine mammals, Yagi wondered?
So he and his colleagues spent 2014 to 2021 diving for dolphin feces around Japan’s Mikura Island. what are their goals?population of bottlenose dolphin It has been continuously studied since 1994 and its age is already well documented.
Believe it or not, Yagi says swimming in dolphin poop isn’t as disgusting as you might think.
“Dolphin feces looks like a smoke screen, with some small clumps,” Yagi said. “The odor is not unpleasant and resembles a fishy odor rather than the typical odor associated with human or pet feces.”
Back in the lab, the scientists confirmed that measuring fecal samples by DNA methylation rate was an accurate way to estimate the dolphin’s age. Their study shows that the fecal process is as reliable as invasive methods, a first for marine mammals.
Steve Horvath, a geneticist at the University of California, Los Angeles, invented epigenetic clock technology and first tested its effectiveness in calculating people’s ages in 2011. “I think this paper is very innovative,” he says.
Although the method still needs fine-tuning and development, Yagi’s test did not work well on lactating female dolphins, for example, Horvath says epigenetic dating using feces can be used in a variety of animals. He is thinking. “It can be extremely valuable to endangered species,” he says.
Pooh, what can’t you do?
This article was first published hakai magazine Republished here with permission.
