• Charles Sturt University research explores rate of application of genetics tools applied to conservation situations
• The research has been published in the British Ecological Society Journal of Applied Ecology

A Charles Sturt University researcher’s systematic review of more than 50,000 papers and reports has shown the rate that genetics tools have been applied to conservation situations.

Senior Lecturer in Ornithology in the Charles Sturt School of Agricultural, Environmental and Veterinary Sciences in Albury-Wodonga Dr Maggie Watson was approached in October 2019 by prospective PhD student Mr Kevin Tkach.

Mr Tkach was in lockdown during the COVID-19 pandemic and wanted to start the literature review portion of his applied conservation research project for his PhD. He was unable to start his PhD due to his degree in Argentina not being recognised by Australia, but he and Dr Watson continued the review, analysing thousands of papers for ones that fit their criteria.

Genetic tools are used in applied conservation management for taxonomic identification, delineation of management units, management of wild populations, captive breeding and reintroduction, and control of invasive species, diseases and hybridisation.   

“The idea was that there are many ‘genetics tools’ that have been developed that were intended to be applied to conservation situations,” Dr Watson said.

“We wanted to find out how much these tools were actually being applied in the real world.”

The study highlights the relatively low publication rate of applications of genetics tools compared to the general conservation genetics field. This means these tools either have a low per centage of translations into publication or a poor uptake among wildlife conservation managers.

“The implication is that conservation genetics tools must be brought to the forefront of conservation policy and management,” Dr Watson said.

“Users should support the use of systems and accessible databases to increase the uptake of genetic tools for conservation in applied management decisions for wildlife, reducing barriers to disseminating the results to other end users and interested parties.”

An article titled ‘Publication and use of genetics tools in conservation management applications — a systematic review’ about the research and its findings has been published in the British Ecological Society Journal of Applied Ecology. A blog describing the COVID-19 lockdown inspired study was published on Friday 11 August.

Dr Watson said this publication should generate discussion around establishing a database for dissemination of applied conservation genetics data.

“One of the key findings of this study was that we discovered how buried this work is, and we realised how hard it would be for a naïve conservation manager wanting to look for these applications to find what they were looking for,” Dr Watson said.

To fill this gap, the journal Austral Ecology has decided to dedicate a special issue to ‘Conservation Genetics in the Global South’, which Dr Watson and Mr Tkach will edit.

“We are extremely pleased and proud that our paper has been published in such a prestigious journal,” she said.

“We always aim to publish in Q1 journals to ensure that our research is available not only to domestic audiences, but to overseas audiences.

“Publishing in this journal ensures that the University is on the international stage in research.”

The annual National Science Week (Saturday 12 to Sunday 20 August) is a celebration of science and technology, with more than 1,000 events around Australia delivered by universities, schools, libraries, museums and science and research centres.