Sniffing in the name of science

Detection dogs help generate important data for research and conservation

HELMHOLTZ CENTRE FOR ENVIRONMENTAL RESEARCH - UFZ

Research News

 

IMAGE: ANNEGRET GRIMM-SEYFARTH WITH BORDER COLLIE "ZAMMY " IN SEARCH OF ENDANGERED CRESTED NEWTS. view more 

CREDIT: DANIEL PETER

The lists of Earth's endangered animals and plants are getting increasingly longer. But in order to stop this trend, we require more information. It is often difficult to find out exactly where the individual species can be found and how their populations are developing. According to a new overview study published in Methods in Ecology and Evolution by Dr Annegret Grimm-Seyfarth from the Helmholtz Centre for Environmental Research (UFZ) and her colleagues, specially trained detection dogs can be indispensable in such cases. With the help of these dogs, the species sought can usually be found faster and more effectively than with other methods.

How many otters are there still in Germany? What habitats do threatened crested newts use on land? And do urban hedgehogs have to deal with different problems than their rural conspecifics? Anyone wishing to effectively protect a species should be able to answer such questions. But this is by no means easy. Many animals remain in hiding - even their droppings can be difficult to find. Thus, it is often difficult to know exactly whether and at what rate their stocks are shrinking or where the remaining survivors are. "We urgently need to know more about these species", says Dr Annegret Grimm-Seyfarth of the UFZ. "But first we must find them".

Remote sensing with aerial and satellite images is useful for mapping open landscapes or detecting larger animals. But when it comes to densely overgrown areas and smaller, hidden species, experts often carry out the search themselves or work with cameras, hair traps, and similar tricks. Other techniques (e.g. analysing trace amounts of DNA) have also been attracting increasing interest worldwide. The use of specially trained detection dogs can also be particularly useful. After all, a dog's sense of smell is virtually predestined to find the smallest traces of the target species. While humans have about six million olfactory receptors, a herding dog has more than 200 million - and a beagle even 300 million. This means that dogs can perceive an extremely wide range of odours, often in the tiniest concentrations. For example, they can easily find animal droppings in a forest or plants, mushrooms, and animals underground.

At the UFZ, the detection dogs have already proven their abilities in several research projects. "In order to be able to better assess their potential, we wanted to know how detection dogs have previously been used around the world", says Grimm-Seyfarth. Together with UFZ employee Wiebke Harms and Dr Anne Berger from the Leibniz Institute for Zoo and Wildlife Research (IZW) in Berlin, she has evaluated 1220 publications documenting the use of such search dogs in more than 60 countries. "We were particularly interested in which breeds of dogs were used, which species they were supposed to track down, and how well they performed", explains the researcher.

The longest experience with the detection dogs is in New Zealand, where dogs have been tracking threatened birds since around 1890. Since then, the idea has been implemented in many other regions, especially in North America and Europe. The studies analysed focused mainly on finding animals as well as their habitats and tracks. Dogs have been used to find more than 400 different animal species - most commonly mammals from the cat, dog, bear, and marten families. They have also been used to find birds and insects as well as 42 different plant species, 26 fungal species, and 6 bacterial species. These are not always endangered species. The dogs sometimes also sniff out pests such as bark beetles or invasive plants such as knotgrass and ragweed.

"In principle, you can train all dog breeds for such tasks", says Grimm-Seyfarth. "But some of them may require more work than others". Pinschers and Schnauzers, for example, are now more likely to be bred as companion dogs and are therefore less motivated to track down species. And terriers tend to immediately snatch their targets - which is, of course, not desirable.

Pointers and setters, on the other hand, have been specially bred to find and point out game - but not to hunt it. This is why these breeds are often used in research and conservation projects in North America, Great Britain, and Scandinavia in order to detect ground-breeding birds such as ptarmigans and wood grouse. Retrievers and herding dogs also have qualities that make them good at tracking species. They are eager to learn, easy to motivate, enjoy working with people, and generally do not have a strong hunting instinct. That is why Labrador Retrievers, Border Collies, and German Shepherds are among the most popular detection dogs worldwide.

Grimm-Seyfarth's Border Collie Zammy, for example, learned as a puppy how to track down the droppings of otters. This is a valuable contribution to research because the droppings can be genetically analysed to find out which individual it comes from, how it is related to other conspecifics, and what it has eaten. However, even for experienced experts, these revealing traces are not so easy to find. Especially small and dark coloured droppings are easy to overlook. Dogs, on the other hand, sniff even the most unremarkable droppings without distinction. In an earlier UFZ study, they found four times as many droppings as human investigators alone. And the fact that Zammy is now also looking for crested newts makes his efforts even more rewarding.

According to the overview study, many other teams around the world have had similarly good experiences. In almost 90% of cases, the dogs worked much more effectively than other detection methods. Compared with camera traps, for example, they detected between 3.7 and 4.7 fold more black bears, pied martens, and bobcats. They are also often reach their destination particularly quickly. "They can find a single plant on a football field in a very short time", says Grimm-Seyfarth. They are even able to discover underground parts of plants.

However, there are also cases where the use of detection dogs is not the method of choice. Rhinos, for example, leave their large piles of excrement clearly visible on paths so that humans can easily find them on their own. And animal species that know feral dogs as enemies are more likely to find (and fight) the detection dogs than to be found.

"However, in most cases where the dogs did not perform so well, poor training is to blame", says Grimm-Seyfarth. She believes that good training of the animal is the most important recipe for success for detection dogs. "If you select the right dog, know enough about the target species, and design the study accordingly, this can be an excellent detection method". She and her colleagues are already planning further applications for the useful detection dogs. A new project that involves tracking down invasive plant species will soon be launched.

CAPTION

Annegret Grimm-Seyfarth with specially trained detection dog "Zammy", a Border Collie.

CREDIT

USC study shows promising potential for marine biofuel

UNIVERSITY OF SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA

Research News

 

IMAGE: DIVER ATTACHES KELP TO AN EARLY PROTOTYPE OF THE KELP ELEVATOR. view more 

CREDIT: MAURICE ROPER

For several years now, the biofuels that power cars, jet airplanes, ships and big trucks have come primarily from corn and other mass-produced farm crops. Researchers at USC, though, have looked to the ocean for what could be an even better biofuel crop: seaweed.

Scientists at the USC Wrigley Institute for Environmental Studies on Santa Catalina Island, working with private industry, report that a new aquaculture technique on the California coast dramatically increases kelp growth, yielding four times more biomass than natural processes. The technique employs a contraption called the "kelp elevator" that optimizes growth for the bronze-colored floating algae by raising and lowering it to different depths.

The team's newly published findings suggest it may be possible to use the open ocean to grow kelp crops for low-carbon biofuel similar to how land is used to harvest fuel feedstocks such as corn and sugarcane -- and with potentially fewer adverse environmental impacts.

The National Research Council has indicated that generating biofuels from feedstocks like corn and soybeans can increase water pollution. Farmers use pesticides and fertilizers on the crops that can end up polluting streams, rivers and lakes. Despite those well-evidenced drawbacks, 7% of the nation's transportation fuel still comes from major food crops. And nearly all of it is corn-based ethanol.

"Forging new pathways to make biofuel requires proving that new methods and feedstocks work. This experiment on the Southern California coast is an important step because it demonstrates kelp can be managed to maximize growth," said Diane Young Kim, corresponding author of the study, associate director of special projects at the USC Wrigley Institute and a professor of environmental studies at the USC Dornsife College of Letters, Arts and Sciences.

The study was published on Feb. 19 in the journal Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews. The authors include researchers from USC Dornsife, which is home to the Wrigley Institute, and the La Cañada, California-based company Marine BioEnergy, Inc., which designed and built the experimental system for the study and is currently designing the technology for open-ocean kelp farms.

Though not without obstacles, kelp shows serious promise as biofuel crop

Government and industry see promise in a new generation of climate-friendly biofuels to reduce net carbon dioxide emissions and dependence on foreign oil. New biofuels could either supplement or replace gasoline, diesel, jet fuel and natural gas.

If it lives up to its potential, kelp is a more attractive option than the usual biofuel crops -- corn, canola, soybeans and switchgrass -- for two very important reasons. For one, ocean crops do not compete for fresh water, agricultural land or artificial fertilizers. And secondly, ocean farming does not threaten important habitats when marginal land is brought into cultivation.

The scientists focused on giant kelp, Macrocystis pyrifera, the seaweed that forms majestic underwater forests along the California coast and elsewhere and washes onto beaches in dense mats. Kelp is one of nature's fastest-growing plants and its life cycle is well understood, making it amenable to cultivation.

But farming kelp requires overcoming a few obstacles. To thrive, kelp has to be anchored to a substrate and only grows in sun-soaked waters to about 60 feet deep. But in open oceans, the sunlit surface layer lacks nutrients available in deeper water.

To maximize growth in this ecosystem, the scientists had to figure out how to give kelp a foothold to hang onto, lots of sunlight and access to abundant nutrients. And they had to see if kelp could survive deeper below the surface. So, Marine BioEnergy invented the concept of depth-cycling the kelp, and USC Wrigley scientists conducted the biological and oceanographic trial.

The kelp elevator consists of fiberglass tubes and stainless-steel cables that support the kelp in the open ocean. Juvenile kelp is affixed to a horizontal beam, and the entire structure is raised and lowered in the water column using an automated winch.

Beginning in 2019, research divers collected kelp from the wild, affixed it to the kelp elevator and then deployed it off the northwest shore of Catalina Island, near Wrigley's marine field station. Every day for about 100 days, the elevator would raise the kelp to near the surface during the day so it could soak up sunlight, then lower it to about 260 feet at night so it could absorb nitrate and phosphate in the deeper water. Meantime, the researchers continually checked water conditions and temperature while comparing their kelp to control groups raised in natural conditions.

"We found that depth-cycled kelp grew much faster than the control group of kelp, producing four times the biomass production," Kim said.

CAPTION

A USC Wrigley Institute study finds that raising and lowering kelp boosts its growth four-fold. It's the next step toward growing it in the open ocean on giant "kelp elevators" to produce biofuel at commercial scale.

CREDIT

Letty Avila

The push to develop a new generation of biofuels

Prior to the experiment, it was unclear whether kelp could effectively absorb the nutrients in the deep, cold and dark environment. Nitrate is a big limiting factor for plants and algae, but the study suggests that the kelp found all it needed to thrive when lowered into deep water at night. Equally important, the kelp was able to withstand the greater underwater pressure.

Brian Wilcox, co-founder and chief engineer of Marine BioEnergy, said: "The good news is the farm system can be assembled from off-the-shelf products without new technology. Once implemented, depth-cycling farms could lead to a new way to produce affordable, carbon-neutral fuel year-round."

Cindy Wilcox, co-founder and president of Marine BioEnergy, estimates that it would take a Utah-sized patch of ocean to make enough kelp biofuel to replace 10% of the liquid petroleum consumed annually in the United States. One Utah would take up only 0.13% of the total Pacific Ocean.

Developing a new generation of biofuels has been a priority for California and the federal government. The U.S. Department of Energy's Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy invested $22 million in efforts to increase marine feedstocks for biofuel production, including $2 million to conduct the kelp elevator study. The Department of Energy has a study to locate a billion tons of feedstock per year for biofuels; Cindy Wilcox of Marine BioEnergy said the ocean between California, Hawaii and Alaska could contribute to that goal, helping make the U.S. a leader in this new energy technology.

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The study authors include Ignacio A. Navarrete, Diane Kim, David W. Ginsburg, Jessica M. Dutton, John Heidelberg and Yubin Raut of the USC Wrigley Institute; Cindy Wilcox and Brian Howard Wilcox of Marine BioEnergy; and Daniel C. Reed at the Marine Science Institute at UC Santa Barbara.

The research was supported by ARPA-E, U.S. Department of Energy Award Number DE-AR0000689 and by Marine BioEnergy, Inc., which has a commercial interest in the research and contributed part of its $2.6 million federal grant to cover the cost of the USC Wrigley Institute study.

You Tube video of diver inspecting open-ocean kelp (via Marine BioEnergy co.): https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=1&v=idHh7P9D2ws&feature=emb_logo

Transmission risk of COVID-19 from sewage spills into rivers can now be quickly quantified

UNIVERSITY OF EXETER

Research News

 

Scientists have identified that the COVID-19 virus could be transmitted through faecal contaminated river water.

A team of researchers, including water quality, epidemiology, remote sensing and modelling experts, led by Dr Jamie Shutler at the University of Exeter, have developed a fast and simple way to assess the potential risk of water-borne transmission of the COVID-19 virus, posed by sewage spills into open and closed freshwater networks.

The new study, published in the journal Environmental Science and Technology - Water, identifies the relative risk of viral transmission by sewerage spills, across 39 different counties.

The study used information on the environment, a population's infection rate, and water usage to calculate the potential potency of viral loads in the event of a sewerage spill.

The research team believe the new study could provide fresh impetus in identifying new ways in which to prevent the spread of the virus amongst communities and the environment.

Dr Jamie Shutler, lead author of the study and at the University of Exeter's Penryn Campus in Cornwall said: "it's important to identify and break all viable transmission routes if we want to stop any future outbreaks".

Airborne water droplets have previously been highlighted as the main route for transmission of the virus which causes COVID-19, but we know that other forms of transmission are likely to exist.

Previous studies have shown that COVID-19 viral pathogens can be found in untreated wastewater, in concentrations consistent with population infection rates. While studies are still relatively early in relation to COVID-19, other human coronaviruses are documented to survive in wastewater, with colder water temperature likely to increase viral survival.

Using this knowledge and existing methods, the research team identified how the transmission risk from water contaminated with sewage reduces over time.

This issue is likely to be especially problematic in parts of the world with a large proportion of temporary settlements, such as shanty towns, favellas or refugee camps, which are less likely to have safe sanitisation systems. Or any densely populated region that has high infection rates that also suffers from a sewage spill.

Modifying established pollution analysis methods, the team were able to estimate the viral concentration in rivers after a sewage spill. This meant they could calculate the relative transmission risk posed to humans by contaminated waterways for 39 countries.

These methods, the team argue, provides a fast way to assess the transmission risk associated to sewage spills through the use of easily available population, infection rate and environmental data, allowing evidence based guidance following a spill.

Dr Shutler added: "we hope that water companies or NGOs will use our simple spreadsheet calculator, that is freely available, to estimate the transmission risk after a spill. They can then use this information to advise the public."

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This research was partially funded by the European Union project Aquasense, which is focussing on novel methods to study and monitor water quality.

The research resulted from a collaboration between the University of Exeter in Cornwall, the University of Glasgow, the ?ukasiewicz-Institute of Electron Technology in Poland, and the University of Agriculture in Kraków, Poland.

The fully open access paper is available here:
Shutler et al., (2021) Rapid Assessment of SARS-CoV-2 Transmission Risk for Fecally Contaminated River Water, Environmental Science and Technology Water.

Lake turbidity mitigates impact of warming on walleyes in upper Midwest lakes

PENN STATE

Research News

IMAGE: SLIGHTLY HIGHER WATER TEMPERATURES IN SOME UPPER MIDWEST LAKES HAVE RESULTED IN INCREASED GROWTH RATES FOR YOUNG WALLEYES LIKE THESE, BUT IF WATER TEMPERATURES CONTINUE TO RISE, INFLUENCED BY A... view more 

CREDIT: GRETCHEN HANSEN, UNIVERSITY OF MINNESOTA

Because walleyes are a cool-water fish species with a limited temperature tolerance, biologists expected them to act like the proverbial "canary in a coal mine" that would begin to suffer and signal when lakes influenced by climate change start to warm. But in a new study, a team of researchers discovered that it is not that simple.

"After analyzing walleye early-life growth rates in many lakes in the upper Midwest over the last three decades, we determined that water clarity affects how growth rates of walleyes change as lakes start to warm," said Tyler Wagner, Penn State adjunct professor of fisheries ecology. "In some lakes, warming actually led to increased walleye growth rates, in others there essentially was no change, and in others, growth rates declined. The different responses of growth rates to increasing water temperatures across lakes appear to be influenced by water turbidity."

The research is significant, Wagner explained, because walleye fisheries in the upper Midwest are important not just ecologically, but also from an economic and cultural perspective. Because walleye fishing is a valued social activity in Minnesota and Wisconsin and hundreds of thousands of walleye fingerlings are stocked there to bolster wild populations, the region is the ideal place to study the effect of warming conditions on the fish.

According to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, the Midwest has gotten warmer, with average annual temperatures increasing over the last several decades. Between 1900 and 2010, the average air temperature increased by more than 1.5 degrees Fahrenheit in the region.

"The rate of increase in air temperature has accelerated in recent decades, and this increase in air temperature will affect the thermal habitat for fishes across the region," Wagner said. "Temperatures are projected to continue increasing across the Midwest -- with the greatest increases in average temperature expected in northern areas -- so we wanted to know what was happening with walleye populations in the upper Midwest."

Using data provided by the Minnesota and Wisconsin departments of Natural Resources, researchers quantified annual walleye early-life growth rates from 1983 to 2015 in 61 lakes in the upper Midwest. Then they estimated the relationship between early-life growth rates and water growing degree days -- an indicator of the temperature the fish are exposed to -- over those 32 years. Importantly, they also examined how water turbidity influenced growth rates across the 61 lakes, correlated to an increased number of growing degree days.

Their findings, published Feb. 23 in the Canadian Journal of Fisheries and Aquatic Sciences, showed that, on average, early-life growth rates increased with increasing growing degree days in turbid lakes, remained more or less unchanged in moderately clear lakes, and decreased in very clear lakes. This suggests that a "one-size-fits-all" approach to managing walleye populations across a broad landscape may not be effective, according to Wagner.

"Rather, lake-specific characteristics likely will be important in determining how walleye populations respond to climate change," he said.

The analysis also indicated that walleye growth rates varied among lakes of different sizes, explained lead researcher Danielle Massie, who graduated from Penn State in 2020 with a master's degree in wildlife and fisheries science.

"Walleye early-life growth rates, on average, were significantly greater in larger lakes," she said. "Our results provide insights into the conservation of cool-water species in a changing environment and identify lake characteristics in which walleye growth may be at least somewhat resilient to climate change."

The results of the research were surprising, Wagner conceded, because researchers expected to see walleye growth rates in most lakes decrease with more growing degree days -- since walleyes prefer cool water. But that did not happen in most of the lakes they studied.

"It sounds counterintuitive at first, but if we think about fish growth, we can think about it as a performance curve, where growth increases with increasing temperature to a certain point," he said. "But as the lake warms past that optimum temperature, the curve descends, and we'll see declining growth as the temperature increases beyond that point."

Slightly higher water temperatures in some upper Midwest lakes have resulted in increased growth rates for walleyes, but if water temperatures continue to rise, influenced by a warming climate, walleye populations in the region will suffer, predicted Wagner, assistant leader of Penn State's Pennsylvania Cooperative Fish and Wildlife Research Unit, housed in the College of Agricultural Sciences.

"We're going to reach a water temperature tipping point where growth will decline, and then we'll see deleterious effects," he said. "This is why understanding what factors, such as turbidity and lake size, influence how fish populations respond to warming is critical for informing management and conservation efforts."

CAPTION

The findings of this research suggests that a "one-size-fits-all" approach to managing walleye populations across a broad landscape may not be effective. Rather, lake-specific characteristics likely will be important in determining how walleye populations respond to climate change.

CREDIT

Gretchen Hansen, University of Minnesota

Also involved in the research were Gretchen Hansen, Department of Fisheries, Wildlife, and Conservation Biology, University of Minnesota; Yan Li, North Carolina Division of Marine Fisheries, North Carolina Department of Environment Quality; and Greg Sass, Escanaba Lake Research Station, Office of Applied Science, Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources.

The Minnesota Department of Natural Resources, the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources, the Pennsylvania Sea Grant Program and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service supported this research.

 

Plant clock could be the key to producing more food for the world

Night time clock helps plants know when to grow

UNIVERSITY OF MELBOURNE

Research News

 

IMAGE: PLANTS CAN'T STUMBLE TO THE FRIDGE IN THE MIDDLE OF THE NIGHT IF THEY GET HUNGRY SO THEY HAVE TO PREDICT THE LENGTH OF THE NIGHT SO THERE'S ENOUGH ENERGY... view more 

CREDIT: GETTY

A University of Melbourne led study has established how plants use their metabolism to tell time and know when to grow - a discovery that could help leverage growing crops in different environments, including different seasons, different latitudes or even in artificial environments and vertical gardens.

Published in the PNAS journal, Superoxide is promoted by sucrose and affects amplitude of circadian rhythms in the evening, details how plants use their metabolism to sense time at dusk and help conserve energy produced from sunlight during the day.

Lead researcher Dr Mike Haydon, from the School of BioSciences, said while plants don't sleep as humans do, their metabolism is adjusted during the night to conserve energy for the big day ahead of making their own food using energy from sunlight, or photosynthesis.

"Getting the timing of this daily cycle of metabolism right is really important because getting it wrong is detrimental to growth and survival," Dr Haydon said. "Plants can't stumble to the fridge in the middle of the night if they get hungry so they have to predict the length of the night so there's enough energy to last until sunrise; a bit like setting an alarm clock."

Dr Haydon and collaborators had earlier shown that the accumulation of sugars produced from photosynthesis give the plant important information about the amount of sugar generated in the morning and sends signals to what's known as the circadian clock, to adjust its pace.

"We have now found that a different metabolic signal, called superoxide, acts at dusk and changes the activity of circadian clock genes in the evening," said Dr Haydon. "We also found that this signal affects plant growth. We think this signal could be providing information to the plant about metabolic activity as the sun sets."

Researchers hope the study will be invaluable in the world producing more food, more reliably.

"As we strive to produce more food for the increasing global population in the face of changing climate, we may need to grow crops in different environments such as different seasons, different latitudes or even in artificial environments like vertical gardens," Dr Haydon said.

"Understanding how plants optimise rhythms of metabolism could be useful information to allow us to fine-tune their circadian clocks to suit these conditions and maximise future yields."

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UNESCO reveals largest carbon stores found in Australian World Heritage Sites

Australia's marine World Heritage Sites are among the world's largest stores of carbon dioxide according to a new report from the United Nations, co-authored by an ECU marine science expert.

EDITH COWAN UNIVERSITY

Research News

 

Australia's marine World Heritage Sites are among the world's largest stores of carbon dioxide according to a new report from the United Nations, co-authored by an ECU marine science expert.

The UNESCO report found Australia's six marine World Heritage Sites hold 40 per cent of the estimated 5 billion tons of carbon dioxide stored in mangrove, seagrass and tidal marsh ecosystems within UNESCO sites.

The report quantifies the enormous amounts of so-called blue carbon absorbed and stored by those ecosystems across the world's 50 UNESCO marine World Heritage Sites.

Despite covering less than 1 per cent of the world's surface, blue carbon ecosystems are responsible for around half of the carbon dioxide absorbed by the world's oceans while it is estimated they absorb carbon dioxide at a rate about 30 times faster than rainforests.

Australia a 'Blue Carbon' hotspot

Report author and ECU Research Fellow Dr Oscar Serrano said Australia's Great Barrier Reef, Ningaloo Coast and Shark Bay World Heritage areas contained the vast majority of Australia's blue carbon ecosystems.

"We know Australia contains some of the world's largest stores of blue carbon due to the enormous size and diversity of our marine ecosystems," he said.

"However here in Australia and around the world, these ecosystems are under threat from human development and climate change.

"While they're healthy, blue carbon ecosystems are excellent stores of carbon dioxide, but if they are damaged, they can release huge amounts of carbon dioxide stored over millennia back into the atmosphere."

Climate change turns up the heat on seagrass

In 2011 seagrass meadows in the Shark Bay World Heritage Site in Western Australia released up to nine million tons of stored carbon dioxide after a marine heatwave devastated more than 1000sqkm of seagrass meadows.

The UNESCO Report's authors have outlined the potential for the countries including Australia to use the global carbon trading market to fund conservation and restoration efforts at marine World Heritage Sites including here in Australia.

Dr Serrano said both Shark Bay and the Great Barrier Reef ecosystems are at risk due to climate change and human development.

"There are significant opportunities for both the Great Barrier Reef and Shark Bay to be protected and restored to ensure they survive and thrive in the future," he said.

"Australia also has plenty of marine ecosystems in need of protection not contained within a World Heritage Site which are worthy of our attention.

Money to be made in carbon market

Dr Serrano's previous research has highlighted the millions of dollars in potential conservation and restoration projects of blue carbon ecosystems while also helping Australia and other countries achieve their commitments to the Paris Climate Agreement.

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The report was led by Professor Carlos Duarte and a team of collaborators from Australia, Saudi Arabia, Denmark, the United States, Kenya and the United Kingdom.

The UNESCO Marine World Heritage report is titled 'Custodians of the globes' blue carbon assets' and can be accessed at the UNESCO webpage.

Disclaimer: AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accur

Dinosaur species: 'Everyone's unique'

Paleontologists from the Universities of Bonn and Liverpool examined 14 skulls of Plateosaurus trossingensis

UNIVERSITY OF BONN

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IMAGE: ON LOAN FROM THE FRICK DINOSAUR MUSEUM, ON DISPLAY AT THE ZOOLOGICAL RESEARCH MUSEUM ALEXANDER KOENIG (ZFMK) IN BONN. view more 

CREDIT: © VOLKER LANNERT/UNI BONN

"Everyone's unique" is a popular maxim. All people are equal, but there are of course individual differences. This was no different with dinosaurs. A study by researchers at the University of Bonn and the Dinosaur Museum Frick in Switzerland has now revealed that the variability of Plateosaurus trossingensis was much greater than previously assumed. The paleontologists examined a total of 14 complete skulls of this species, eight of which they described for the first time. The results have now been published in the scientific journal "Acta Palaeontologica Polonica".

Plateosaurus lived during the Late Triassic, about 217 to 201 million years ago. "With well over 100 skeletons, some of them completely preserved, it is one of the best known dinosaurs," says Dr. Jens Lallensack, who researched dinosaur biology at the University of Bonn and has been working at Liverpool John Moores University (UK) for several months. The herbivore had a small skull, a long neck and tail, powerful hind legs and strong grasping hands. The spectrum is considerable: Adult specimens ranged from a few to ten meters in length, weighing between about half a ton and four tons.

The first bones of Plateosaurus were found as early as 1834 near Nuremberg, making it the first dinosaur found in Germany, and one of the first ever. Between 1911 and 1938, excavations unearthed dozens of skeletons from dinosaur "graveyards" in Halberstadt (Saxony-Anhalt) and Trossingen (Baden-Württemberg). A third such cemetery was discovered in the 1960s in Frick, Switzerland. "It's the only one where there are still digs every year," Lallensack says. The material from Frick, which is described in detail for the first time, includes eight complete and seven fragmentary skulls excavated by Swiss paleontologist and dinosaur researcher Dr. Ben Pabst and his team.

CAPTION

of Plateosaurus trossingensis (top) and a reconstruction of the skull with the different bones highlighted in colour (bottom).

CREDIT

© Jens Lallensack

Natural variation between individuals

Dinosaurs have been preserved for posterity mainly through bones. Paleontologists rely on anatomical details to distinguish different species. "A perpetual difficulty with this is that such anatomical differences can also occur within a species, as natural variation between individuals," Lallensack reports. Researchers at the University of Bonn and the Dinosaur Museum Frick (Switzerland) have now been able to show that Plateosaurus anatomy was significantly more variable than previously thought - and the validity of some species needs to be re-examined. These findings were made possible by analyses of 14 complete and additional incomplete skulls of Plateosaurus. "Such a large number of early dinosaurs is unique," says paleontologist Prof. Dr. Martin Sander of the University of Bonn.

Can all these fossils from Germany and Switzerland really be assigned to a single species? Answering this question has become all the more urgent since Martin Sander and Nicole Klein of the University of Bonn published in "Science" in 2005. According to this, Plateosaurus was probably already warm-blooded like today's birds, but was able to adapt its growth to the environmental conditions - something that today can only be observed in cold-blooded animals. "This hypothesis is of great importance for our understanding of the evolution of warm-bloodedness," reports Lallensack. However, until now the observed individually distinct growth patterns could alternatively be explained by the assumption that there was not only one, but several species present. The current study debunks this.

CAPTION

of a Plateosaurus trossingensis skull deformed by loading during fossilisation.

CREDIT

© Jens Lallensack

Bone deformations during fossilization

The researchers have now carefully documented the variations in skulls of different sizes. A significant portion of the differences can be attributed to bone deformation during fossilization deep below the Earth's surface. Individual variations must be distinguished from this: The posterior branch of the zygomatic bone, which is sometimes bifurcated and sometimes not, appeared most striking to the researchers. A strongly sculptured bone bridge over the eye was also present only in some skulls. The relative size of the nasal opening also varies.

"It becomes apparent that each skull has a unique combination of features," Lallensack notes, emphasizing the distinct individuality of these dinosaurs. The uniquely large number of skulls studied made it possible to show that the differences in characteristics were variations within a species and not different species. "Only if as many finds as possible are excavated and secured will we obtain the high quantities needed to prove species affiliation and answer fundamental questions of biology" says Sander.

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Funding:

The study was funded by the German Research Foundation (DFG). The project received financial support for the excavation and preparation from the municipality of Frick and the Canton of Aargau (Swisslos Fund) of Switzerland.

Publication: Lallensack, J.N., Teschner, E.M., Pabst, B., and Sander, P.M.: New skulls of the basal sauropodomorph Plateosaurus trossingensis from Frick, Switzerland: Is there more than one species? Acta Palaeontologica Polonica, DOI: https://doi.org/10.4202/app.00804.2020; http://app.pan.pl/article/item/app008042020.html

 

Neandertals had the capacity to perceive and produce human speech

BINGHAMTON UNIVERSITY

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IMAGE: 3D MODEL AND VIRTUAL RECONSTRUCTION OF THE EAR IN A MODERN HUMAN (LEFT) AND THE AMUD 1 NEANDERTAL (RIGHT). view more 

CREDIT: MERCEDES CONDE-VALVERDE

BINGHAMTON, NY -- Neandertals -- the closest ancestor to modern humans -- possessed the ability to perceive and produce human speech, according to a new study published by an international multidisciplinary team of researchers including Binghamton University anthropology professor Rolf Quam and graduate student Alex Velez.

"This is one of the most important studies I have been involved in during my career", says Quam. "The results are solid and clearly show the Neandertals had the capacity to perceive and produce human speech. This is one of the very few current, ongoing research lines relying on fossil evidence to study the evolution of language, a notoriously tricky subject in anthropology."

The evolution of language, and the linguistic capacities in Neandertals in particular, is a long-standing question in human evolution.

"For decades, one of the central questions in human evolutionary studies has been whether the human form of communication, spoken language, was also present in any other species of human ancestor, especially the Neandertals," says coauthor Juan Luis Arsuaga, Professor of Paleontology at the Universidad Complutense de Madrid and co-director of the excavations and research at the Atapuerca sites. The latest study has reconstructed how Neandertals heard to draw some inferences about how they may have communicated.

The study relied on high resolution CT scans to create virtual 3D models of the ear structures in Homo sapiens and Neandertals as well as earlier fossils from the site of Atapuerca that represent ancestors of the Neandertals. Data collected on the 3D models were entered into a software-based model, developed in the field of auditory bioengineering, to estimate the hearing abilities up to 5 kHz, which encompasses most of the frequency range of modern human speech sounds. Compared with the Atapuerca fossils, the Neandertals showed slightly better hearing between 4-5 kHz, resembling modern humans more closely.

CAPTION

Reconstructed hearing patterns in modern humans, Neandertals and the Sima de los Huesos based on their ear anatomy. Compared with their ancestors from the Sima de los Huesos, the Neandertals more closely resemble modern humans in showing a heightened sensitivity between 3.5-5 kHz, a frequency range that contains acoustic information related to consonant production in human spoken language.

CREDIT

Mercedes Conde-Valverde

In addition, the researchers were able to calculate the frequency range of maximum sensitivity, technically known as the occupied bandwidth, in each species. The occupied bandwidth is related to the communication system, such that a wider bandwidth allows for a larger number of easily distinguishable acoustic signals to be used in the oral communication of a species. This, in turn, improves the efficiency of communication, the ability to deliver a clear message in the shortest amount of time. The Neandertals show a wider bandwidth compared with their ancestors from Atapuerca, more closely resembling modern humans in this feature.

"This really is the key," says Mercedes Conde-Valverde, professor at the Universidad de Alcalá in Spain and lead author of the study. "The presence of similar hearing abilities, particularly the bandwidth, demonstrates that the Neandertals possessed a communication system that was as complex and efficient as modern human speech."

"One of the other interesting results from the study was the suggestion that Neandertal speech likely included an increased use of consonants," said Quam. "Most previous studies of Neandertal speech capacities focused on their ability to produce the main vowels in English spoken language. However, we feel this emphasis is misplaced, since the use of consonants is a way to include more information in the vocal signal and it also separates human speech and language from the communication patterns in nearly all other primates. The fact that our study picked up on this is a really interesting aspect of the research and is a novel suggestion regarding the linguistic capacities in our fossil ancestors."

Thus, Neandertals had a similar capacity to us to produce the sounds of human speech, and their ear was "tuned" to perceive these frequencies. This change in the auditory capacities in Neandertals, compared with their ancestors from Atapuerca, parallels archaeological evidence for increasingly complex behavioral patterns, including changes in stone tool technology, domestication of fire and possible symbolic practices. Thus, the study provides strong evidence in favor of the coevolution of increasingly complex behaviors and increasing efficiency in vocal communication throughout the course of human evolution.

The team behind the new study has been developing this research line for nearly two decades, and has ongoing collaborations to extend the analyses to additional fossil species. For the moment, however, the new results are exciting.

"These results are particularly gratifying," said Ignacio Martinez from Universidad de Alcalá in Spain. "We believe, after more than a century of research into this question, that we have provided a conclusive answer to the question of Neandertal speech capacities."

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The study, "Neandertals and modern humans had similar auditory and speech capacities," was published in Nature Ecology and Evolution.