shy albatross (Thalassarche cauta)
ANU - Faculty of Science - School of Botany and Zoology
Albatrosses
My students and I have developed DNA-based techniques to identify the provenance of seabirds caught by longline fishing vessels. Provenance identification first requires the characterisation of the existing genetic structure among populations and we used the shy albatross (Thalassarche cauta), a Tasmanian endemic as our test case. This species was recently split from New Zealand’s white-capped albatross and both were thought to be heavily impacted by fishing operations. Our initial aims were: 1) to determine the phylogenetic relationship between shy, white-capped and the other two albatross species in the ‘shy’ albatross complex; 2) to investigate the existence of gene flow between the New Zealand populations of white-capped albatrosses and the three populations of shy albatross in Tasmania; 3) to examine the genetic diverge between the three populations of shy albatross in Tasmania and 4) to determine the applicability of molecular techniques for identifying the species and island of origin for all shy and white-capped albatrosses returned by observers on longline vessels.
The research is also ongoing and has now expanded to other albatross and petrel species.
Photo by Mike Double
|
