Up in the Air

Zoos wear many hats.  They are breeding centers for endangered species.  They offer refuge to injured or otherwise non-releasable wild animals.  They serve as educational facilities and living classrooms.  They offer recreational opportunities for people of all walks of life.  One aspect that we often overlook, however, is their research potential.  That would be a mistake, as there are many things that zoos can teach us about the natural world.

Recently, two teams of scientists, one in the UK and one in Denmark, independently came upon a brilliant idea.  Based on laboratory experiments, they discovered that DNA from animals could be detected drifting around in the air.  Interesting, to be sure - but would the results be the same in the open air?  To find out, both teams decided to go to the zoo - Hamerton Zoo Park in England and Copenhagen in Denmark.  The theory was that the zoos would each have a wide variety of species of known origin, many of which would not be present in the surrounding area.

DNA pulled from thin air identifies nearby animals

Scientists Pull Animal DNA Out of Thin Air

Danish scientist Kristine Bohmann collects air samples in the Copenhagen Zoo’s tropical rainforest house. Christian Bendix

The results were astonishing.  Taking just samples from the air, the Hamerton study turned up 25 species, the Copenhagen team 49 species.  They also picked up traces of wild animals on zoo grounds, such as hedgehogs, as well as traces of the meat from the diets of the carnivores.  So, a scientist given this air sample, with no idea where it came from, would be able to name many of the species in the zoo without having any background information.

There are important implications for this for conservation.  While some wild animals are easy to observe, many are decidedly not.  They may be nocturnal, or arboreal, or fossorial, or just plain shy.  Some biologists may never see their research subject in the flesh.  For some species, we may not even know if they are still alive or not.  Camera traps, fecal studies, even blood samples taken from leeches may provide some evidence - this is another tool which can help us fill in the gaps in our knowledge of the natural world.  For example, we could take hundreds of air samples from all over Tasmania to try to determine if the thylacine does or does not still roam the island.  Ditto with other maybe/maybe not extinct species.  We can determine which patches of habitat boast the greatest species diversity and should be top priorities for conservation.  

There are considerable possibilities for using this new technology to better conserve wildlife in the field - and zoos are a perfect place to hone the techniques.