Call of the Wild: Conservation Science research and practice at Edinburgh

The Royal (Dick) School of Veterinary Studies’ Conservation Science group works to conserve and protect wildlife, both in the UK and across the rest of the world. 

“It is tremendously important when discussing conservation that we do not focus on a single approach,” says Rob. “There is a multitude of aspects to conservation, from genetic and biological right through to social and political. We cannot usefully tackle any one of these areas in isolation.” 

The Conservation Science Group at the School has two main streams: Conservation Medicine and Conservation Genetics.  

Comprehensive approach 

“In conservation medicine, we take an interdisciplinary approach to understanding wildlife populations and ecosystems. This includes understanding the interrelationships between the health of wildlife, domestic animals, humans and the wider environment – a One Health approach.”  

Current Conservation Medicine projects range from the local, such as wildcat and red squirrel disease surveillance and golden eagles translocations in Scotland, to the global, such as their work on the scimitar-horned oryx in Tunisia and the zoonotic disease, Trypanosomiasis (also known as sleeping sickness), in Zambia. 

The Conservation Genetics team also engages with a range of geographical areas, but focuses closely on managing and conserving genetic diversity in populations. “We focus on a variety of wildlife projects, spanning marine, terrestrial and avian species,” says Rob. “We are increasingly using genomic technologies to improve our toolkit of conservation genetic methods and address questions common to many different species.  But despite the technology we can now access, there’s also still a role for conducting simple DNA tests that answer basic management questions; these often don’t result in publications, but really impact conservationists on the ground.” 

There is a natural interrelationship between the wildlife health and conservation genetics streams, and projects benefit from the colocation of these interrelated topics. “We have recently sequenced the genome of the Scottish golden eagle and we’re investigating how populations vary genetically and how this information can inform golden eagle management in the wild. We are also looking at populations of golden eagles in the north of Scotland from a conservation medicine perspective, trying to establish biomarkers that allow us to correlate the health of the birds with environmental conditions and their underlying biology.” 

Real-world impact 

A key driver for the work of the School is providing the data to support practical conservation efforts. “It’s crucial when managing wildlife populations that we have the best possible information to support decision-making,” says Rob. “This comes from research, and our role in the Conservation Science Group is to provide the theoretical forecasts and actual data to enable governments and NGOs to make the right decisions about wildlife conservation strategies.” 

Rob and other members of the group are members of the International Union for Conservation of Nature, providing expert guidance on the conservation of wildlife populations and lobbying for policy change that will help to conserve our planet’s biodiversity.  

The Group also supports the management of species in zoos, where population genetic diversity and species biology can have a direct impact on successful management in captivity. “A good example of where this comes into play is giraffes,” says Rob, who works as a population genetic advisor to the European Association of Zoos and Aquariums. 

“For decades, giraffe were considered to be a single species, made up of multiple subspecies. Recent DNA sequencing research now supports the idea that there may be four separate species, which means that zoos could have been breeding hybridised giraffes.  This would potentially reduce their fitness and limit their future use in conservation reintroductions, so we are conducting genetic research to examine the risk that hybridisation has occurred in previous generations.” 

Lessons for and from domestication 

There are natural points of convergence across Conservation Genetics and the work of the School’s Roslin Institute in livestock health and genetics, and vice-versa. “We can use our knowledge of the genomes of pigs, cattle and chickens to learn more about wild animals such as wild boar, oryx and golden eagles, by looking at correlations and associations with their better-studied domesticated relatives,” says Rob.  

“We can also learn a lot about the genetics of our domesticated animals by investigating their wild counterparts. Understanding more about where breeds came from and the diversity present in the wild helps to inform other scientists focusing on domestic animal production.” 

The future of conservation science 

What is the future of conservation science? Greater collaboration and cross-disciplinary activity, says Rob. “The ongoing crisis in biodiversity conservation requires robust research to inform species management and argue for change. At the same time, our progressive realisation that the health of humans, agriculture and wildlife are interdependent and all underpin resilient ecosystems means that our conservation scientists are increasingly joining forces with a broad range of collaborators at in academia and beyond, working to ensure the long-term health of the planet.”