It’s been a brief while (oops!) since the last post on The G-CAT (I promise more content is coming soon!), so I thought I would give a quick research update. This week, I had the absolute privilege of attending the 3rd International Conservation Translocation Conference 2023 here in sunny Perth (Fremantle, to be more specific). Hosted through the IUCN Species Survival Commission, and particularly the IUCN SSC Conservation Translocation Specialist Group, the conference brought hundreds of attendees from across the globe to share the trials and tribulations of conservation translocation efforts.
Continue readingSpecies diversity on PNF-404: a biodiversity assessment of the Pikmin series
The Pikmin series
Like many “Nerds by Profession” (scientists), much of my love for evolutionary biology as a young kid was fostered by an amazing diversity of creatures, both real and fictional. A formative influence in the latter category for me was through gaming – while I hold love for many great gaming franchises, the Nintendo series Pikmin holds a special place in my heart. The series of puzzle-cross-strategy games primarily following the misadventures of diminutive space explorer Captain Olimar, who crash lands on what is heavily implied (and later confirmed) to be a post-human Earth (or PNF-404, as it’s known). There, he is greeted by a strange plant-like species called Pikmin, who assist him in repairing his ship or collecting treasure (depending on the game). The Pikmin games require a certain degree of strategy, planning and time-efficiency in order to complete the necessary tasks within the limited timeframe of the game (or individual day).
Continue readingMixing fishes and climate change – adaptation by hybridisation
Adapting to a changing world
The global climate is changing at an unprecedented rate, approaching conditions last seen globally over 3 million years ago. Impacted by the compounding effects of climate change, habitat modification, invasive species and direct exploitation (e.g., fishing and hunting), species across the globe are threatened with extinction. Key to the effective management of global biodiversity is the understanding of how species may (or may not) rise to the challenge of climate change: can species adapt? Which species will adapt? How will they adapt? The answers to these questions are elusive and complicated.
Continue readingRunaway inbreeding: how runs of homozygosity impact conservation management
On the precipice
Species which exist in fragmented, isolated and reduced populations have elevated extinction risk. Not only are they more susceptible to demographic and environmental stochasticity, which can easily wipe out small populations, but they also suffer from a range of genetic impacts. Notably, populations often lose significant amounts of genetic diversity as they reduce in size, potentially losing important adaptive diversity enabling them to respond to current and future environmental change. At the same time, random genetic drift becomes stronger relative to natural selection, reducing the efficacy of selection to be able to increase the frequency of favourable alleles and reduce the frequency of maladaptive ones. Together, these impacts create feedback loops which hasten the decline into the extinction vortex.
Continue readingThe G-CAT for #MyScienceMay
So it might have been a hot minute since I’ve posted (sorry about that!). But rest assured, new content is in the works, and will be up shortly. In the meantime, however, I’m delighted to announce that not only will I be participating in the science communication event #MyScienceMay (as organised by Avid Research and Let’s Talk SciComm), but that The G-CAT is now live on Instagram! You can check me out @thegeneticscat, where I’ll be posting a combination of brief insights into my research; short summaries of relevant conservation genetics topics; animal facts and wildlife photography; and more of my day-to-day.
That’s not to say the long-form blog approach is going anywhere: I still very much enjoy writing these lengthier, more descriptive posts. But the Instagram will provide some bite-sized content in between the longer posts to provide more regular and easily digestible information (that’s the aim, anyway).
With that said, I hope you’ll tune in throughout May to see what I’ve been up to and my current projects. I’ll be alternating context between Instagram and my Twitter (@fishlogeography), but may attempt to collate it all here somewhere.
The G-cat 