Water, DNA and the Bugs on my Windscreen
Scott spoke recently to Dr Kat Bruce, Founder and CEO of NatureMetrics. You can listen to their discussion about NatureMetrics’ funky new technology to help protect biodiversity here.
Are you wondering where those pesky bugs have gone that used to splatter against your car windscreen? Do you ponder the whereabouts of the butterflies that swarmed the flower beds of hot summers past? You might be thinking, “Where are those deer that used to poke their heads from between those trees over there?”
As the impacts of climate change unfold and as human activities such as land clearing and the use of pesticides begin to have profound impacts, understanding what’s happening to the animals and plants – the biodiversity - around us is increasingly important.
Bees are the most critical species on the planet because of the pollinating services they provide, free of charge, to our agricultural industry and yet they too are disappearing. We should be worried about that.
It’s not everyone that notices and worries about the biodiversity around them, but Dr Kat Bruce does. Kat is an inspiring tropical ecologist and CEO of NatureMetrics, a company that tackles this issue of needing to know what’s happening to biodiversity is doing so in new and funky ways.
NatureMetrics brings the power of big data to forests, fields and all those faraway places where humans impact biodiversity, to help us understand what lives where, in what numbers and most powerfully, to understand how this is changing over time.
In so many places around the world, that kind of data just isn’t available and that’s why you, me and so many scientists didn’t notice the loss of those pesky bugs, the butterflies, the deer and all sorts of other species, early enough. That’s because the research to collect the data costs a lot of money. You have to hire groups of scientists and get them out in the field for long periods. That can be hugely expensive and totally prohibitive for most governments let alone companies who need to know their impact. Beyond costs, there can be issues with reliability - some creatures, for example, are difficult to track so it’s a real challenge to assess if they’re present and what their population might be.
Kat and NatureMetrics overcome these cost and reliability issues through their innovative technology that allows them to extract and analyse DNA found in water.
“It’s an amazingly powerful tool that reveals species living in and around the water,” Kat noted in her recent discussion with Scott.
The world is covered by water bodies and each one carries the DNA of aquatic (things that live in the water like fish, amphibians, water bugs and so on) and terrestrial (land walking, like tigers, giant anteaters, monkeys etc.) life that comes into contact with it. That could be through anything like poo and skin cells, mucus, dead bodies, gametes and all sorts. Kat and her team have devised a system that allows field workers to collect water samples and, using a small syringe-like device, filter out the biomatter. Samples are sent to a lab which matches the DNA found in the sample to the animals it belongs to.
This DNA focused method is faster, cheaper, accessible and more efficient than anything used in the past. It’s an absolute lifesaver. Literally!
As the NatureMetrics mantra states, “what can be measured, improves.” With more data and more reliable data, we can make better decisions about biodiversity that have true and meaningful impacts. While it’s not so great spending your Sunday morning scraping bugs from your windscreen, the world depends on them, and tigers, birds, tapirs and all the other species that enrich ecosystems and our lives everywhere. We need those animals and they need us. Finding new ways to help them say “I’m here!” is absolutely critical. That’s exactly what Kat Bruce is doing.