Woolly mammoths evolved smaller ears and woolier coats over the 700,000 years that they roamed the Siberian steppes

Peer-Reviewed Publication

CELL PRESS

 

IMAGE: THIS IS A PHOTO OF A WOOLLY MAMMOTH TUSK, FROM WHICH THE AUTHORS SEQUENCED THE ENTIRE GENOME. THE TUSK WAS DISCOVERED IN NORTHEASTERN SIBERIA IN 2015 AND HAS BEEN RADIOCARBON DATED TO CA 18,000 YEARS BEFORE PRESENT. view more 

CREDIT: LOVE DALÉN

A team of researchers compared the genomes of woolly mammoths with modern day elephants to find out what made woolly mammoths unique, both as individuals and as a species. The investigators report April 7 in the journal Current Biology that many of the woolly mammoth’s trademark features—including their woolly coats and large fat deposits—were already genetically encoded in the earliest woolly mammoths, but these and other traits became more defined over the species’ 700,000+ year existence. They also identified a gene with several mutations that may have been responsible for the woolly mammoth’s miniscule ears.

“We wanted to know what makes a mammoth a woolly mammoth,” says paleogeneticist and first author David Díez-del-Molino (@indianadiez) of the Centre for Palaeogenetics in Stockholm. “Woolly mammoths have some very characteristic morphological features, like their thick fur and small ears, that you obviously expect based on what frozen specimens look like, but there are also many other adaptations like fat metabolism and cold perception that are not so evident because they’re at the molecular level.”

To identify genes that were “highly evolved” in woolly mammoths— meaning they had accrued a large number of mutations—the team compared the genomes of 23 Siberian woolly mammoth with 28 modern-day Asian and African elephant genomes. Twenty-two of these woolly mammoths were relatively modern, having lived within the past 100,000 years, and sixteen of the genomes had not been previously sequenced. The twenty-third woolly mammoth genome belonged to one of the oldest known woolly mammoths, Chukochya, who lived approximately 700,000 years ago.

“Having the Chukochya genome allowed us to identify a number of genes that evolved during the lifespan of the woolly mammoth as a species,” says senior author Love Dalén (@love_dalen), professor of evolutionary genomics at the Centre for Palaeogenetics in Stockholm. “This allows us to study evolution in real time, and we can say these specific mutations are unique to woolly mammoths, and they didn't exist in its ancestors.”

Not surprisingly, many genes that were adaptive for woolly mammoths are related to living in cold environments. Some of these genes are shared by unrelated modern-day Arctic mammals. “We found some highly evolved genes related to fat metabolism and storage that are also found in other Arctic species like reindeer and polar bears, which means there’s probably convergent evolution for these genes in cold-adapted mammals,” says Díez-del-Molino.

While previous studies have looked at the genomes of one or two woolly mammoths, this is the first comparison of a large number of mammoth genomes. This large sample size enabled the team to identify genes that were common among all woolly mammoths, and therefore likely adaptive, as opposed to genetic mutations that might only have been present in a single individual.

“We found that some of the genes that were previously thought to be special for woolly mammoths are actually variable between mammoths, which means they probably weren't as important,” says Díez-del-Molino.

Overall, the 700,000-year-old Chukochya genome shared approximately 91.7% of the mutations that caused protein-coding changes in the more modern woolly mammoths. This means that many of the woolly mammoth’s defining traits—including thick fur, fat metabolism, and cold-perception abilities—were probably already present when the woolly mammoth first diverged from its ancestor, the steppe mammoth.

However, these traits developed further in Chukochya’s descendants. “The very earliest woolly mammoths weren't fully evolved,” says Dalén “They possibly had larger ears, and their wool was different—perhaps less insulating and fluffy compared to later woolly mammoths.”

More modern woolly mammoths also had several immune mutations in T cell antigens that were not seen in their ancestor. The authors speculate that these mutations may have conferred enhanced cell-mediated immunity in response to emerging viral pathogens.

Working with ancient mammoth DNA comes with a slew of hurdles. “Every step of the way, things are a bit more difficult, from fieldwork, to lab work, to bioinformatics,” says Díez-del-Molino.

“Apart from the field work, where we have to battle both polar bears and mosquitos, another aspect that makes this much more difficult is that you have to work in an ancient DNA laboratory, and that means that you have to dress up in this full-body suit with a hood and face mask and visor and double gloves, so doing the lab work is rather uncomfortable to put it mildly,” says Dalén. “I would like to highlight Marianne Dehasque, the second author of this paper, who did the herculean effort of performing lab work on most of these samples.”

All the mammoths whose genomes were included in this study were collected in Siberia, but the researchers hope to branch out and compare North American woolly mammoths in the future. “We showed a couple of years ago that there was gene flow between woolly mammoths and the ancestors of Colombian mammoths, so that’s something that we will need to account for because North American woolly mammoths might have been carrying non-woolly mammoth genes as well,” says Dalén.

This is a photo of study co-author Love Dalén with the Yuka mammoth, whose genome was included in the analyses.

CREDIT

Ian Watts

CAPTION

This is a photo of study co-author Marianne Dehasque working in the ancient DNA lab at the Centre for Palaeogenetics in Stockholm.

CREDIT

Jens Lasthein

This research was supported by the Swedish Research Council, FORMAS, the Carl Tryggers Foundation, the SciLifeLab, the Wallenberg Data Driven Life Science Program, the Wallenberg Academy, and the Russian Science Foundation.

Current Biology, Díez-del-Molino et al. ‘Genomics of adaptive evolution in the woolly mammoth’ https://www.cell.com/current-biology/fulltext/S0960-9822(23)00404-9

Current Biology (@CurrentBiology), published by Cell Press, is a bimonthly journal that features papers across all areas of biology. Current Biology strives to foster communication across fields of biology, both by publishing important findings of general interest and through highly accessible front matter for non-specialists. Visit: http://www.cell.com/current-biology. To receive Cell Press media alerts, contact press@cell.com.

---

JOURNAL

Current Biology

DOI

10.1016/j.cub.2023.03.084 

METHOD OF RESEARCH

Data/statistical analysis

SUBJECT OF RESEARCH

Not applicable

ARTICLE TITLE

Genomics of adaptive evolution in the woolly mammoth

ARTICLE PUBLICATION DATE

7-Apr-2023

Direwolf jawbone confirmed in Canadian north with new technology

 

Apr 7, 2023  #GlobalNews #Direwolf #GameofThrones

On HBO's Game of Thrones, direwolves were magical creatures of the north. Turns out, these  beasts were once creatures of the Canadian north as well.

Evidence of the direwolf was first discovered decades ago, in an area near Medicine Hat, Alta., where the remains of ice age mammals — such as sabre tooth tigers — have also been found.

But for the direwolf, researchers had very little to go on, until technology finally helped mathematically confirm that a jawbone did in fact belong to a direwolf, making it the northern-most confirmed example of the species ever found.

Global’s Heather Yourex-West has the details.

Scientists confirm first Canadian fossil of Ice Age predator the dire wolf

Canada now has its first dire wolf. 

For the first time, a Canadian fossil has been confirmed as coming from the Ice Age predator featured in the TV series "Game of Thrones.

Bob Weber, The Canadian Press

Apr 5, 2023 

An artist's impression of a dire wolf (Canis dirus) is seen in an undated handout photo. A team from the Royal Ontario Museum in Toronto has used new technology to positively identify a fossil of a dire wolf which was found in Canada. 

THE CANADIAN PRESS/HO-ROM, Danielle Dufault, *MANDATORY CREDIT*

Canada now has its first dire wolf.

For the first time, a Canadian fossil has been confirmed as coming from the Ice Age predator featured in the TV series "Game of Thrones." The specimen, from near Medicine Hat in southern Alberta, was tentatively identified decades ago but a team from the Royal Ontario Museum used new technology to finally lock it down.

"It had never been fully described," said evolutionary biologist Ashley Reynolds, lead author of the paper published in the Journal of Quaternary Science. "This had never been done for this specimen."

It wasn't easy. The entire specimen, between 25,000 and 50,000 years old, consists of one jaw, badly crushed, with some remaining teeth.

"We could tell pretty clearly right away it was a member of the dog family, about the size of a wolf," Reynolds said.

So, it was either a grey wolf or a dire wolf. There are ways to tell them apart based on teeth, but this animal was too old for that.

"When an animal gets really old, it starts to wear down its teeth and this can mean that features of the teeth get worn away," Reynolds said.

Although dire wolves tend to be significantly bigger than grey wolves, this individual was within the size range of both species. So the researchers tried something else.

The team took points along the outline of the fossil and used a computer program to estimate its shape. They compared that with known values from grey and dire wolves.

"Based on the parts of the shape we do have, which does it look more like," Reynolds said.

This dire wolf is the northernmost confirmed example of the species ever found. That's because in those days, most of what is now Canada, was covered by a massive ice sheet.

But every now and then the ice retreated, opening up habitat from Yukon down through central and southeast Alberta and making way for an Ice Age bestiary that's hard to imagine on the rolling, grassy plains along the South Saskatchewan River where the dire wolf was found.

There were giant ground sloths, wild horses, camels, mammoths and mastodons. Reynolds' previous research found sabre-tooth cats in the same deposit as the dire wolf.

Confirming the presence of dire wolves adds to our picture of what the Ice Age looked like in Canada, Reynolds said.

"We're starting to get a better picture of what lived in Canada in ages past. We see a fauna that is very similar to what we would see even in California."

But this area would also have seen a unique mixing of southern and Arctic species. There's some evidence, for example, that cave lions could have lived in the area.

There's not much Reynolds can say about the dire wolf she studied.

It was relatively small for the species. It was very old, so it must have been a successful wolf. At some point in its life, it lost one of its big teeth and had to make do.

Much about Ice Age Canada remains to be learned, Reynolds said.

"Canadian fossils, especially from the time the after the dinosaurs, are relatively understudied," Reynolds said. "We're really just starting to figure out what the landscape looked like."

This report by The Canadian Press was first published April 5, 2023.

— Follow Bob Weber on Twitter at @row1960

Bob Weber, The Canadian Press

CANADA
Budget watchdog troubled by spin around latest report on carbon pricing

Story by The Canadian Press • 

OTTAWA — Canada's Parliamentary budget officer said he is troubled by what he describes as the selective use of facts from his new financial analysis of carbon pricing.


Budget watchdog troubled by spin around latest report on carbon pricing

© Provided by The Canadian Press

Yves Giroux said the report has to be put into context alongside the costs of all other climate policies, including doing nothing.

"There will be costs no matter what we do," Giroux said in an interview with The Canadian Press.

Giroux opened a political firestorm last week with a new report which concluded carbon price rebates are worth more than the direct cost of the carbon price for 80 per cent of families. But he said when the carbon price's economic impact on job growth and incomes is factored in, 80 per cent of families in most provinces might end up with less money.

The Liberals, who campaigned successfully on carbon pricing in both 2019 and 2021, jumped on the first point to insist the strategy makes life more affordable.

The Conservatives, who have campaigned heavily on scrapping carbon pricing, latched onto the second part to insist the Liberals lied about the "sneaky carbon tax" when they said the rebates would be worth more than the cost.

Giroux said you can't pick and choose which part to discuss.

"I am concerned at times about looking at just one aspect of the report," he said.

"Looking at the big picture, the overall picture, is highly preferable. Anything we do with respect to addressing or trying to curb climate change will have costs. It's either a cost to the carbon tax or regulations to reduce the use of fossil fuel. Regulations also have a cost. Doing nothing would also have costs."

Carbon pricing is based on the idea that higher fuel costs will lead to lower usage and an overall decrease in emissions. The rebates are meant to mitigate the impact of those higher costs.

The premise may be simple, but the reality is complex and the political spin and misinformation about the policy is rampant.

Christopher Ragan, founding director at McGill University's Max Bell School of Public Policy, said the Conservatives talk about carbon pricing without offering any glimpse of what they'll do instead. Any alternative, including doing nothing, isn't free, he said.

But the government, he adds, isn't making it easy to understand what carbon pricing really does.

"I think they've been quite bad at explaining it and communicating it," he said.

The government focuses almost exclusively on the money people could save through the rebates or switching to electric cars. They're less clear that carbon pricing does have a cost to it, because that's the whole point — to make fuel cost more.

"It's almost as if they just choose not to engage in those discussions, or they just aren't good enough to do that, and I'm not sure which it is," Ragan said.

Carbon pricing also doesn't provide instant gratification when it comes to lowering emissions.

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A separate report Giroux released last year concluded that raising the carbon price to $170 per tonne by 2030, as the government intends, will eliminate 96 million tonnes of emissions more than if the price remained at the current rate of $50 a tonne.

That's about what 21 million passenger cars emit over a year, and more than 40 per cent of the emissions Canada is seeking to eliminate by 2030 to hit its reduction targets.

But the government can't yet show people that the price they're paying is having an impact.

Environment Minister Steven Guilbeault said that analysis is underway, but isn't ready yet. He was also honest in his assessment that the government's messaging about climate change and carbon pricing policies isn't always as sharp as it should be.

"I think we need to do a better job at communicating on climate change," Guilbeault said in an interview.

His department has hired some outside environment communications experts to help craft a better message with a view to launching what he described as "the largest climate change awareness campaign," likely by late spring or early summer.

That campaign will try and paint a better picture of what climate change has already cost us, what it could keep costing us and what we can do to limit those costs.

"We want to help people understand," Guilbeault said.

But the Liberals are frustrated with Giroux's report because it doesn't include the context he insists is required.

The most recent report explicitly states it "does not attempt to account for the economic and environmental costs of climate change."

Ontario Liberal MP Lloyd Longfield, who sits on the House of Commons environment committee, wrote to Giroux Wednesday to ask him to take another crack at the analysis to include those factors.

He also wants Giroux to contextualize the carbon price alongside the costs of other policies to regulate lower emissions, as well as the economic benefits of investing in low-carbon industries.

"To ignore these things does a disservice to the discussion," Longfield said in an interview.

He said critics argue the carbon price raises the cost of food, but contended climate change does too. He said the swath of droughts, wildfires and floods in California, from where Canadians get a lot of fresh produce, has raised the price of crops such as lettuce, strawberries and broccoli.

Giroux said it's up to those reading or discussing the report to put it into context.

"Our caveats are clearly included in the report and the limitations are also to the best of our capacity included, as clear as possible," he said. "So if some individuals or groups use the report and spin it a certain way, I think it's up to them to explain why."

The PBO did complete an analysis last year looking at what climate change itself is costing. It said in 2021, the GDP was 0.8 per cent lower than it would have been without climate change. In dollar figures, that amounted to between $20 billion and $25 billion less. It said the GDP will be 0.08 percentage points lower every year as a result of climate change going forward, even if the government implements every policy promised to slow it down.

Doing nothing would increase that cost.

Giroux said he didn't expand that analysis to show the cost to a family's budget because a social or cost-benefit analysis like that is tricky.

"Sometimes it can be straightforward, but sometimes it can be difficult and it's typically not something that we are equipped to do or for which we have an explicit mandate," he said.

He also said the economic benefits of investing in low-carbon industries will not be realized heavily by 2030, which is as far as this report looks ahead.

Last month, Clean Energy Canada said Canada could add 700,000 new energy jobs from investing in clean technology and renewable energy, but the analysis suggests that gain wouldn't be realized until 2050.

University of Calgary economist Trevor Tombe said while regulations would dictate what one must do to cut back on fossil fuel use, carbon prices leave it to a consumer or a business to decide what works best for them. That makes it the most efficient way, and usually the cheaper way, to address carbon emissions, he said.

The cost of regulation is also much less transparent than the cost of the carbon price.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published April 8, 2023.

Mia Rabson, The Canadian Press

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Inside the den: Edmonton's urban coyotes rear their young close to human habitat, study finds

Story by Wallis Snowdon • CBC

A discarded shopping cart, a shipping container, an abandoned vehicle — all have provided refuge for Edmonton's newest generation of urban coyotes, wild canines that are building their dens surprisingly close to human habitat.

With Edmonton's population of coyotes growing, a recent survey of their dens shows that pups are emerging each spring from busy, unexpected places deep within the city landscape, increasing the risk of conflict with people and pets.

As spring's pup-rearing season begins, researcher Sage Raymond says her survey of 120 coyote dens demonstrates that, in urban landscapes, coyotes dens are closer than expected.

The animals are hiding in plain sight — rearing their pups surprisingly close to homes and other buildings, but under dense cover on steep slopes to conceal their young from people and their dogs.

Keeping dens at a safe distance may help reduce bad encounters with the animals, especially when coyotes are aggressively protecting their young, said Raymond, a grad student researcher at the University of Alberta and the Edmonton Urban Coyote Project.

"I think of kind of coyotes during the period when they have pups as just being a little bit more trigger-happy," she said.

"They fear a threat to their young, which are very vulnerable at that time."


Researcher Sage Raymond used her tracking skills to locate 120 coyote dens in Edmonton.

© David Bajer/CBC

With prairie grasslands to the south and boreal forest to the north, and a river valley cutting across the city, Edmonton has long been home to a large population of urban coyotes.

Between 500 and 1,000 are believed to roam the city.

Raymond began searching for dens in January 2022. She followed a total of 500 kilometres of coyote tracks in the snow.

She focused her searches on urban green spaces, including parks and golf courses, and also quiet industrial yards.

Raymond expected coyotes would tend to choose secluded places for their dens. Instead, she found them in areas busy with humans and dogs.

Dens were located, on average, 85 metres from the nearest building, she said.

For their dens, coyotes prefer dense cover, steep slopes and eastern exposure. Within this high-quality habitat, coyotes "weren't too fussy" about where they chose to have their dens, Raymond said.

She likens Edmonton's coyotes to homebuyers who may not be picky about the neighbourhood they live in but are very fussy about the style and size of their home.

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"What we found is that coyotes can be very, very selective about their den sites ... so that the den feels very remote, even though it's actually quite close to buildings," she said.

When coyotes are giving birth and caring for their young, they are especially vulnerable, she said. Finding dens so close to human habitat demonstrates the species' incredible ability to adapt to the city landscape and blend "their lifestyle with the urban lifestyle," she said.

To measure the frequency of conflict between coyotes and people and their pets, Raymond relied on the Edmonton Urban Coyote Project's community reporting database.

Citizen complaints about coyotes collected between 2010 and 2020 were coded so that each event included a GPS location, a date, and coyote behaviour. She cross-referenced that information with the location of each den.

The prevalence of conflict increased during the pup‐rearing period.

Conflict also increased near known den sites in the most exposed locations, outside of naturalized areas, Raymond said.

"Those dens that are way out in the river valley aren't really a big problem," she said.

"That is a really important result because it suggests that we could have better coexistence with coyotes by preventing denning near human-dominated spaces.

"Even though they're closer than you might think, they're not necessarily problematic."

Raymond tracked the dens exclusively in winter, when they were vacant.

She returned in late summer, after the pups had grown and moved out, to get a closer look.

At each site, she measured the den, took soil samples, and measured the proximity to major features within the urban landscape, including roads and the North Saskatchewan River.

Most commonly, coyotes chose shelter under tree roots, Raymond found. Other dens were under shipping containers or built using urban waste including concrete blocks, scrap metal, tires and a discarded door.

Raymond surveyed each site for the availability of fresh water, tree cover and a problematic food source in the city— garbage.

The prevalence of trash inside many of the dens suggests coyotes are being habituated to human food and scents at a young age, she said.

Dens on private property were not included in the survey, although they may represent an important source of physical conflict between people, pets and coyotes, Raymond said.

The city doesn't track numbers on complaints specific to coyote dens but does monitor the sites in partnership with the coyote project research team.

Park rangers can respond to dens on public lands by closing the area, putting up signs, or hazing the adults after the pups have grown, said city spokesperson Chrystal Coleman.

The animals may be destroyed but lethal management is always a last resort, she said.

Coyotes are a fixture in the city and rarely pose a threat to humans but keeping dens out of a residential areas should be a priority, Raymond said.

Residents and city managers should work to keep urban landscapes clean of garbage, food waste, dense vegetation and debris, she said.

"People don't actually know they have a den, sometimes even in their own yard, until the pups emerge," she said.

"And so our best option is preventative measures."

Yukon River’s salmon runs likely to stay small while Indigenous Peoples’ sacrifice grows

Story by The Canadian Press • 

The collapse of wild salmon is causing a current of pain that spans the length of the Yukon River, from its mouth at Alaska’s Bering Sea to the headwaters in Canada’s Yukon territory 3,000 kilometres away.

Indigenous people on both sides of the border spoke about the devastation the loss of chinook salmon and the more recent collapse of chum stocks are having on communities while testifying at the Yukon River Panel, a bilateral commission that manages salmon stocks, during its meeting in Whitehorse this week.

Nobody is fishing, said Tiffany Agayar Andrew from the Alaskan village of Alakanuk on the river's delta a short distance from the sea.

All salmon fishing — commercial, recreational and Indigenous food fisheries— has been closed on both sides of the border for the past three years, eroding the well-being, culture, familial ties and food security of Indigenous communities, Andrew said.

Wealth for Alaskan tribes along the river is measured by families coming together at fish camps to catch and prepare salmon. The fish traditionally made up half of the community's winter food stores, she said.

Andrew spoke of the sadness she felt when a friend confessed she was eating once a day in an effort to ration her subsistence food supply, which is especially vital in communities with no road access or grocery stores.

“We can smell the salmon in the river when they're running, but we cannot go out and fish,” Andrew said.

“People can go crazy. But everybody understands that the fish aren’t of the same abundance as they used to be.”

And the dire situation isn’t going to change soon.

Chinook, also known as king salmon, have been declining for over a decade. But last summer’s run was the lowest ever recorded. The loss of the iconic salmon has been compounded by a precipitous drop in fall chum runs, starting in 2020.

Last summer, fewer than 300,000 chum entered the river, down from an average of more than a million fish in years past.

The Yukon River Panel, the bilateral body created in 2002 to collaboratively manage and conserve Canadian salmon stocks, is forecasting another bad year and fishing closures on both sides of the border.

Pre-season estimates suggest 32,000 Canadian chinook may reach spawning grounds this summer, a number well below the current minimum threshold of 42,500 fish.

Even that number is unlikely to arrive, panel members stressed. Last summer, at least 41,000 chinook were forecast to reach Canadian spawning grounds, but fewer than 12,000 made it.

While the situation in the lower portion of the river is becoming increasingly grim, First Nations in the upper reaches of the Yukon watershed have been suffering the disappearance of salmon since the panel was created.

Closures to commercial and recreational fisheries in Canada have been in place for many years. And Yukon territory First Nations have voluntarily ceded their right to fish in a desperate bid to restore salmon and preserve their culture, the panel heard.

Ryan Peterson said this summer will mark a decade since he’s harvested salmon.

“I had no problem not fishing knowing what I was doing was for these people here, for their children and for my children,” said Peterson, a councillor for the Tr'ondëk Hwëch'in Nation in Dawson City,

But the ongoing failure of the panel to reach a consensus on the measures necessary to save Yukon salmon is frustrating, he said.

It’s no mystery as to the causes of salmon losses, Peterson said.

“Google it,” he said. “There are three things. Climate change, habit destruction and — number one in my mind is — overfishing. It’s that simple.”

Many Indigenous people along the Yukon are pushing the Alaska Department of Fish and Game (ADF&G) to curtail bycatch in fisheries in the Bering Sea and the Aleutian Islands.

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Around 30,000 chinook and half a million chum were caught as bycatch in the pollock fisheries and other ground fish operations in 2021. Fisheries in the region that also target other more abundant salmon like Alaskan pink or sockeye can also inadvertently capture endangered Yukon stocks.

Genetic analysis suggests that less than three per cent of chinook or chum bycatch was headed for the Yukon River and an even lesser amount of those fish stocks destined for Canada.

But every fish matters for Yukon territory First Nations who saw chinook returns of less than 400 fish to tributaries like the Porcupine, Tatchun, Takhini, and Klondike rivers last year.

Teslin Tlingit elder Madeline Jackson said it is necessary to put salmon first before other interests for the sake of future generations.

“I’ve got great-grandkids and they’ve never seen salmon from the lake,” she said.

The community shut fishing down for their children, Jackson said, and if everybody did the same, salmon would multiply.

“Because I want my great-grandchildren to run that net,” she said.

There’s a need for a more collaborative approach on both sides of the border, said Tim Gerberding, chair of the Yukon Salmon Sub-Committee.

Canada supports a more precautionary approach and has long advocated for a long-term closure to fishing along the length of the Yukon on both sides of the border, rather than on an ad hoc basis in bad years, he said.

Ideally, the moratorium would last until stocks have recovered, but Canada is pushing for a pause that would last for at least one life cycle for each species — six years for chinook and four for chum.

But a radical curtailment of Alaskan commercial fishing in the Bering Sea or a commitment to long-term harvesting closures along the river is something the ADF&G and some on the panel have been reluctant to support.

Alleviating fishing pressures isn’t the sole solution, Gerberding said.

Warming waters, disease and hatcheries put cumulative stress on salmon, he said. Many Canadian salmon present in the lower reaches of the river disappear before reaching the border, he added.

The prevailing U.S. theory is that chinook are increasingly affected by Ichthyophonus, a disease that in severe cases causes lesions on the hearts of fish.

Still, there are some measures underway to study and reduce bycatch, Doug Vincent Lang, ADF&G commissioner, told the panel. Like discussions about a possible cap on chum salmon for Alaskan ocean fisheries targeting other abundant salmon stocks. The department is working with the industry to secure voluntary pauses to fishing when chum are passing in numbers, he said.

Lang acknowledged salmon runs on the Yukon had reached “unprecedented” low levels.

“We may not always agree on specifics on how to restore our salmon runs and the users that they support,” Lang said, “but there's a lot of interest in working collaboratively and collegially towards getting chinook salmon, chum salmon and other salmon species … restored.”

There are also strong differences of opinion on the panel about using hatcheries to try to boost salmon stocks, Gerberding said.

Breeding fish for release has been happening worldwide for a long time but has done little to actually rebuild populations. Hatchery fish compete for food with wild stocks and ultimately weaken the physical fitness of threatened salmon, he said.

“They seem like an easy answer, but hatcheries have never really lived up to expectations,” Gerberding said.

At the end of Tuesday’s panel session, Vuntut Gwitchin Chief Pauline Frost said she was moved by Andrew’s testimony about how the loss of salmon is impacting her village at the mouth of the Yukon.

‘It really resonates for me as a leader here in Canada,” Frost said, noting her community of Old Crow is on the Porcupine River, a tributary at the opposite end of the watershed.

“I can tell you the children in my village are feeling the same thing you are right now,” she said.

Frost assured elders and youth that they were heard as the panel considers measures to manage threatened stocks.

“We acknowledge you and we care,” she said.

“And we will do our utmost to ensure we make the right decisions in the best interest of the salmon.”

Rochelle Baker / Local Journalism Initiative / Canada’s National Observer

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Rochelle Baker, Local Journalism Initiative Reporter, Canada's National Observer

MINING IS NOT GREEN

Canada is sitting on a critical minerals mother lode. But is it ready for the new gold rush?

Story by Christian Paas-Lang • CBC

Drive two hours north of Ottawa, put on a hard hat and bright orange vest, descend into a pit — and you find yourself on the frontline in the fight to be part of the new, green economy.

A mining project might not be what comes to mind when you think of the transition to a lower emissions economy. But embedded in electric vehicles, solar panels and hydrogen fuel storage are metals and minerals that come from mines like the one in Lac-des-Îles, Que.

The graphite mine, owned by the company Northern Graphite, is just one of many projects aimed at extracting what are now officially dubbed "critical minerals" — substances of significant strategic and economic importance to the future of national economies.

Lac-des-Îles is the only significant graphite mining project in North America, accounting for Canada's contribution to an industry dominated by China.

Experts and industry proponents say Canada has the potential to be a major player in critical minerals — but it needs to change the scope and scale of investment and regulation in order to get there.

For Northern Graphite, in the short-term, that means money. Hugues Jacquemin, Northern Graphite's CEO, told CBC's The House during a tour of the Quebec facility that the company is trying to open a mine in Bissett Creek, Ont., to produce graphite that could go into EV batteries.

But they need to raise $150 million to kick-start production.


Hugues Jacquemin, CEO of Northern Graphite, stands in a pit mine nearing the end of its commercial life in Lac-des-Îles, Que.

© Jennifer Chevalier/CBC

"No investor is willing to take 100 per cent of the risk. We need someone to step in alongside the investor and support part of the risk because today there is no demand for battery materials in Canada or in the U.S. at the moment," Jacquemin said.

"So we need something to help us jump-start the whole supply chain so that we can be there three or four years from now, when the market is buying materials."

The company says it expects to seek significant financial support from the federal government, but nothing has been confirmed so far.

For its part, the federal government says it's committed to helping build a critical minerals industry in Canada and recently released its official strategy to do so.

"We need to ensure that we have access to these critical minerals to be able to successfully go through the energy transition and fight climate change," Natural Resources Minister Jonathan Wilkinson said in an interview with The House.

Wilkinson told host Catherine Cullen that while the government is willing to work with companies, it can't be the only source of funding.

"The source of all capital doesn't come from the government. Government can actually do things to help kick-start those [projects]. But obviously companies need to be able to [raise] private capital," he said.

Wilkinson pointed to a number of measures the government has in place to help Canadian companies develop critical minerals projects, including the Canada Growth Fund, new tax credits for green investments and government funding for infrastructure to help facilitate projects.

Project timelines a concern

The Canadian government is far from the only one interested in critical minerals mining in this country. The U.S. Department of Defence has expressed interest in projects here — and a willingness to invest. Jacquemin said Northern Graphite plans to apply for American investment as well.

Global News

Saskatchewan announces new critical minerals strategy to expand resource development, export
0:42

Critics — including Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre — have said it simply takes too long to develop a mining project in Canada. Northern Graphite, for example, has owned Bissett Creek since 2012, and the mine is not yet operational.

Wilkinson said the average mining project typically takes around 12 to 15 years but "that's still too long." He said the government is aiming for something more like five or six years.

Ian London, executive director of the Canadian Critical Minerals and Materials Alliance, told Cullen that Canada has the "pieces of the puzzle" to unlock Canada's critical mineral potential, but more needs to be done.

"Prospective customers … want operating facilities, not aspirations," he said.

Environmental impact, Indigenous participation

Perhaps the most significant challenges to the mining industry come from concerns about environmental impacts and the role of Indigenous communities.

On the environmental front, advocacy groups like Environmental Defence worry that mining projects carry with them dangers of waste and environmental damage.

"We need to recognize that more mining likely needs to happen, but it needs to be governed responsibly, and we can't use the rush to extract more minerals for the transition to be an excuse for watering down environmental standards," said Nate Wallace, a program manager with the group.

Wallace noted that with some projects, there's a risk that the benefit of unlocking reduced emissions from innovations like electric vehicles would not be worth the cost of the project's greenhouse gas output. He cited the controversial Ring of Fire proposals in Ontario as one example.

"There's also significant environmental concerns about that project because it's covered by peatlands, and that's basically equivalent to Canada's Amazon rainforest, in terms of being a massive carbon sink," he said.

London said he agrees that a balance needs to be struck between environmental impacts and developing projects. He said that dialogue should continue on controversial projects, but Canada's focus should be more immediate.

"Our priority should be set on projects which are closer to — not shovel ready — but actually going into production," he said.

Wilkinson said the government is "very focused" on making sure the environmental cost of mining is minimized.

"There is no such thing as a mining project that has zero impact," he said. "But there certainly are projects that can be done in a way where the impacts are modest and that there is a plan for how you remediate in the aftermath of the mine."

The Ring of Fire proposals are also a key test of how governments and companies interact with Indigenous communities. The Neskantaga First Nation has said it was not meaningfully consulted on the proposals and has protested them.

Mark Podlasly, an executive with the First Nations Major Projects Coalition, acknowledged that Indigenous people have been wronged in the past when it comes to development.

"Many First Nations are concerned that this new rush for critical minerals, towards the net zero transition, is going to be a repeat of what's happened in the past," he told Cullen.

"How it should work is Indigenous people have to be included in the environmental and economic decisions of the projects from the start."

Mining faces a reputational challenge

Kirsty Liddicoat, Northern Graphite's COO, said the mining industry also faces challenges when it comes to building up its own reputation and workforce. Along with domestic concerns, Canadian companies are frequently criticized for their actions overseas.

"I think mining as an industry is poorly understood and it doesn't necessarily have the best reputation. So that's leading us to a number of challenges with social acceptability and talent," she said.

"We need to be attracting the smartest people to the biggest problems that we have as a world, to help us make this shift."


Kirsty Liddicoat, chief operating officer of Northern Graphite, holds a rock with graphite ore at the company's Lac-des-Îles mine.© Jennifer Chevalier/CBC

London said the mining industry has taken steps to build in more corporate responsibility but there will always be a tradeoff in an extractive industry.

"A colleague of mine said when it comes to green technologies, amongst all that green, there's always going to be a little black," he said.

"It is an extractive industry, there will be some negative impact. But overall, it's tremendously positive."

In Florida study, nonnative leaf-litter ants are replacing native ants

UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS AT URBANA-CHAMPAIGN, NEWS BUREAU

 

IMAGE: THE U.S. NATIVE LEAF-LITTER ANT PHEIDOLE DENTATA. view more 

CREDIT: PHOTO © ALEX WILD, ALEXWILD.COM

CHAMPAIGN, Ill. — A new look at decades of data from museum collections and surveys of leaf-litter ants in Florida reveals a steady decline in native ants and simultaneous increase in nonnative ants – even in protected natural areas of the state, researchers report.

The study tracked leaf-litter ant abundance from 1965 to 2019. Nonnative ants represented 30% of the 177 ground-dwelling species detected in surveys across the state in later years, the team reports. Their dominance grew most notably in southern Florida, where nonnatives increased from 43% to 73% over the decades studied. The nonnative ants are most likely arriving with goods transported to Florida from around the world.

Reported in the journal Current Biology, the findings point to a potential future devoid of native ants, the researchers said.

“Leaf-litter ants tend to be very small, just a few millimeters in length, so moving through soil, leaves and other litter is like climbing over hills for them,” said University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign evolution, ecology and behavior professor Andrew Suarez, who led the research with Douglas Booher, a research entomologist with the U.S. Department of Agriculture Forest Service; and Corrie Moreau, a professor of entomology and of ecology and evolution at Cornell University. “Many of them are small specialist predators, like trap-jaw ants of the genus Strumigenys, which are solitary hunters that specialize in catching small arthropods like springtails.”

These ants rely on the litter that accumulates under trees and other plants, Suarez said.

“These communities are sensitive to habitat loss, especially the loss of canopy trees,” he said. “They also are very susceptible to heat and water stress, as they require humid environments.”

While native and nonnative leaf-litter ants share many traits and likely perform some of the same ecosystem services, the science is still unsettled as to whether the invasives will fill the same niches, the researchers said. Future studies should examine whether certain ecological functions are lost when native ants decline.

“Our biggest worry is that the loss of a few key species that act as specialized predators or seed-dispersers could have ecological consequences for these already threatened ecosystems,” Booher said.

 Native leaf-litter ants differ from the invaders in at least one significant trait, the researchers found. The team tested how well the ants tolerated sharing their nests with individuals of the same species from other nests.

“We collected more than 300 live ant colonies and set them up in artificial nests,” Booher said. “By marking individuals of the same species from different colonies and introducing them to one another, we evaluated if workers from different colonies were adopted or excluded.”

Most of the nonnative workers adopted conspecific worker ants from different colonies, but most natives rejected the outsiders, the team found.

This difference seems to give nonnative ants an advantage, Booher said. By accepting and cooperating with ants from various nests, nonnative ants “effectively act like a single unified colony over a large landscape,” he said.

There are still many more native than nonnative leaf-litter ants in Florida, but the nonnative ants “are becoming more abundant and common,” Booher said. “This concerning trend has increased steadily over the past 54 years. Across all regions of Florida, nonnative species have doubled in collection frequency.”

The research highlights the importance of museum collections for understanding species diversity and loss, Moreau said. “Only through comparing past species diversity and abundance with current data can we really understand how biodiversity is changing through time,” she said.

“While we are starting to appreciate just how bad insect declines are globally, we often don’t have species-level data for many groups,” Suarez said. “By looking at trends for individual species over long periods, we can get an idea of the possible ecological consequences of these patterns.”

Suarez also is a professor of entomology and an affiliate of the Beckman Institute for Advanced Science and Technology and the Carle R. Woese Institute for Genomic Biology at the U. of I. 

The National Science Foundation supported this research.

Pheidole navigans, a South American leaf-litter ant now found in Florida.

Another nonnative making its home in Florida, Wasmannia auropunctata can survive in diverse habitats and is known as a pest species that can drive out native ants.

The nonnative leaf-litter ant, Strumigenys eggersi, can live in a variety of habitats and is more tolerant of dry conditions than native Strumigenys species. 

The leaf-litter ant Odontomachus brunneus is native to the Southeast U.S. It is most active at night. When its colony is disturbed, this species quickly retreats.

CREDIT   Photo © Alex Wild, alexwild.com

Editor’s notes:  
 

To reach Douglas Booher, email dbooher@antmuseum.com  

To reach Andrew Suarez, email suarez2@illinois.edu

The paper “Six decades of museum collections reveal disruption of native ant assemblages by introduced species” is available online or from the U. of I. News Bureau.

DOI: 10.1016/j.cub.2023.03.044

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JOURNAL

Current Biology

DOI

10.1016/j.cub.2023.03.044 

METHOD OF RESEARCH

Observational study

SUBJECT OF RESEARCH

Animals

ARTICLE TITLE

Six decades of museum collections reveal disruption of native ant assemblages by introduced species

ARTICLE PUBLICATION DATE

7-Apr-2023

COI STATEMENT

No conflict declared.

'Hanging in': David Suzuki shares insights as he retires from 'The Nature of Things'

Story by The Canadian Press • Yesterday 8:00 a.m.

After 44 years as the face of Canada's premier science TV show, you might expect David Suzuki to feel a little sadness and a little nostalgia as he steps down as host of "The Nature of Things." Not so.

© Provided by The Canadian Press

"Happy as hell," he laughs over Zoom from his Vancouver office.

"I'm an old guy. It's the next stage of my life. What the hell — it's reality."

Friday night marks Suzuki's last appearance as the host of the show he founded and turned into a byword for science outreach. Over nearly four and a half decades, he's led Canadians on a journey through topics as outré as bug sex and animal music, and as serious as the Underground Railroad and the fight to preserve old-growth forests.

But Suzuki, 87, says the most important thing he's learned over the years has nothing to do with the subjects of his show's hundreds of episodes.

"Hanging in is the most important thing," he says.

"Television is a medium where the latest thing is all wow-wow. Every fall you get the launch of all the new shows and, by the end of the season, 90 per cent of them are gone. And there's old 'Nature Of Things' still chugging along and still pulling in an audience.

"The most important thing is to keep getting our message out."

That message has remained consistent. The show aired its first episode on climate change in 1989. It's done pieces on vanishing species, forest conservation — all of which remain in the news today.

"What the hell is going on?" he rages. "Why are these issues still with us?"

Suzuki promotes what he calls "two-eyed seeing." Western science and economics are powerful ways to examine the world, he says, but they're not the only ones.

"Science, of course, gives us the best measure of what's going on in the world, but you need a bigger context to see what we're studying. And that is the kind of Indigenous construct that has worked for Indigenous people for thousands of years," he says.

"Let's not think that we know enough to manage these things unless we do it within a bigger picture."

Scientists, he says, bear some responsibility. Suzuki, once a prominent geneticist, believes researchers have a duty to go past the disinterested pursuit of knowledge and alert their society to the consequences of what that knowledge means.

He points to the example of the late David Schindler, the renowned University of Alberta water scientist who was an early and persistent voice on the environmental impact of Alberta's oilsands.

"He was absolutely committed to his science, but then he looked at the implications and used the science he knew to advocate for positions," Suzuki says.

"I think every scientist should be an advocate for taking science seriously and pointing out what that science tells."

Suzuki himself has not shied from advocacy, particularly on climate change. In some circles, his name is a byword for meddling, do-gooder environmentalism and he is a polarizing figure.

Any regrets about his uncompromising approach? Well, one.

"I'm very unhappy," he says. "I should have been much stronger."

Love it or loathe it, don't expect that voice to fade. Suzuki may be leaving "The Nature of Things," but he's looking forward to a new platform as a video blogger — although details remain sketchy on that.

Meanwhile, "The Nature of Things" will, in his words, hang in. The show will continue under co-hosts Anthony Morgan and Sarika Cullis-Suzuki — the latter, his daughter.

"I'm delighted with the replacements," Suzuki says. "They're terrific. I've had a good run and the most important thing is the series."

Suzuki has documented more environmental crises than he cares to remember. But that experience, he says, has given him a unique perspective on the word "hope."

"Hope is action," he says.

"If people are going, 'oh, yeah, things are really bad, I hope it works out,' that's not hope. That's hopium. That's giving you an excuse not to do anything.

"If you're not acting, there is no hope."

This report by The Canadian Press was first published April 7, 2023

Bob Weber, The Canadian Press

Researchers find an antibody that targets omicron and other SARS-CoV-2 variants

Peer-Reviewed Publication

WEILL CORNELL MEDICINE

A team led by researchers at Weill Cornell Medicine, the University of Wisconsin-Madison; Scripps Research and the University of Chicago has identified an antibody that appears to block infection by all dominant variants of the virus that causes COVID-19, including Omicron, the most recent. Their discovery could lead to more potent vaccines and new antibody-based treatments. 

In a study published March 6 in the Journal of Clinical Investigation, senior author Dr. Patrick Wilson, the Anne E. Dyson Professor of Pediatric Research and a member of the Gale and Ira Drukier Institute for Children’s Health at Weill Cornell Medicine, and his colleagues tested antibodies derived from patient blood samples against successive versions of the virus that emerged during the pandemic. One of these proteins, dubbed S728-1157, proved highly effective at neutralizing not only older variants but also seven subtypes of Omicron. 

“The pandemic is winding down, but the virus is around for the long haul. If not well controlled, it could cause annual epidemics,” Dr. Wilson said. “This antibody and the insight it provides could help us avoid yearly surges of COVID-19 or if there is another coronavirus pandemic.”

As it replicates in the cells of those it infects, the SARS-CoV-2 virus, which causes COVID-19, acquires new mutations. These changes are raw material for new variants, some of which have the capacity to partially evade vaccines and antibody-based treatments developed to fight the original virus. While many variants have arisen, only some have had the potential to significantly impact infections globally. These include Omicron, which first appeared in November 2021. As of mid-March, one of its subtypes, known as XBB.1.5, has predominated in the United States. 

Early in the pandemic, before the variants emerged, Dr. Maria Lucia Madariaga, an assistant professor of surgery at the University of Chicago, collected blood samples from people recovering from COVID-19. As part of the response to the virus, the immune system generates proteins known as antibodies that latch onto specific parts of the virus, blocking its ability to infect a cell and martialing the immune system to destroy it. 

Dr. Wilson’s group analyzed antibody-producing cells from these samples to find those that latched on to the virus’s spike protein, which it uses to get into human cells. Co-first author Dr. Siriruk Changrob, an instructor of immunology in pediatrics in his lab, tested the antibodies they found against 12 variants of SARS-CoV-2, including the original version of the virus. 

One antibody, called S728-1157, stood out for its ability to interfere with Omicron. In experiments with hamsters, their colleagues at the University of Wisconsin-Madison School of Veterinary Medicine found treatment with this antibody reduced, or abolished, the amount of the original, Delta or Omicron virus in the animals’ nose and lungs. (They are currently testing it against XBB.1.5.) Other collaborators at Scripps Research analyzed the structure of the antibody bound to the spike to understand where it bound and why Omicron’s mutations didn’t interfere.

Their results suggest that S728-1157 could become the basis for a much-needed alternative to conventional antibody-based treatments. The arrival of variants, particularly Omicron, has rendered many of these therapies, known as monoclonal antibodies, ineffective.

The research could also guide the design of new vaccines that rely on the spike protein to stimulate the production of antibodies. The team found the configuration of the spike matters. Specifically, the immune system produces more broadly effective antibodies like S728-1157 when it encounters spikes in an open conformation like the one they would assume to attack a cell. The current mRNA-based vaccines, especially Omicron-based, however, tend to produce more closed spikes.

“The take home message here is that the next generation of vaccines should try to stabilize the spike in a more open position,” Dr. Changrob said. 

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JOURNAL

Journal of Clinical Investigation

ARTICLE TITLE

Site of vulnerability on SARS-CoV-2 spike induces broadly protective antibody to antigenically distinct Omicron subvariants