Systems thinking our biosphere
This article was originally shared on Substack.
Previously, I wrote about Colossal Biosciences and how de-extinction science is just part of the greater systems matter of conservation.
It's all connected because taking things out of a system, moving them around, or putting them back in affects the rest of the ecosystem, which means we need to understand the biodiversity within it and the external forces that act on it, including the human element, as well as aspects like topography, climate, and behaviours.
Today, I'd like to share the breadth of scope of some of the conservation and extinction-prevention work being done right now and how it is being approached as a systems problem.
Balance inside and out
A while ago, I spoke with Natasha Coutts on STEAM Powered. Natasha's specialisation is primatology and she was researching habitat fragmentation and its impact on chimpanzee gut microbiomes taking conservation at a macro level down to the micro level and investigating systems within systems. This work involved, in part, land rehabilitation and reconnecting isolated fragments of habitats with what are effectively chimpanzee superhighways that would restore habitat range and, as a result of food sources and their related food chains being reconnected, the gut health of chimpanzees as well.
It also involved working with the people who share the land for capacity building and closing the gender gap in education to create a more resilient community and local economy, and providing community support for making more informed land use and land management decisions to help protect endangered chimpanzee populations (and their gut biomes) so that both the land and the people can prosper.
Bringing back from the brink
Connecting more directly to the de-extinction science in the previous issue, I mentioned that Colossal was invited to be part of the BioRescue project to save the Northern White Rhino, of which only two females remain and are therefore functionally extinct. Colossal's work in areas such as genetic sequencing, editing, and population studies of close genetic relatives, similar to the type of work applied in their Tasmanian tiger (thylacine) project, will go towards the preservation of the Northern White Rhino and other similarly threatened species (Business Wire, 2023).
On the flora side, in 2023, a de-extinction event was attempted, and succeeded, bringing the flowering plant York groundsel back into existence and flourishing in York from seeds stored in the Millennium Seed Bank. York groundsel was last seen in the wild in 1991 and the stored seeds were approaching the end of their lifespan in the vault, which is why a de-extinction event was initiated.
This is good news for York groundsel, but unfortunately, it is the only globally extinct British plant that we have seeds for so similar de-extinction events of this type are unlikely to happen in Britain again. But it does set a nice precedent for other plants that are endangered or approaching extinction.
For those beyond extinction prevention measures, with work of the kind being done at Colossal with fauna and megafauna, it's not a huge leap to consider that someone could pursue de-extinction avenues for flora down the track using similar methodologies and technologies.
Floral restoration
If we can't bring them back, we can work on putting back what we have which is why both endangered and non-endangered plants are all part of the greater conservation conversation.
Dr Lucy Commander project managed the Florabank Guidelines for native seed collection and use and was lead editor of the Guidelines for the Translocation of Threatened Plants in Australia which addresses translocation of plants to either conserve or facilitate the restoration of plant populations. A common application is in mine site restoration or the development of urban infrastructure, and restoring plant populations to where they were once the work on those sites has concluded.
Before work commences on developing mine sites (and other forms of development) land surveys are conducted to assess the area to identify what's there and what is at risk (including sites and artefacts of cultural relevance). Plants, seeds, or samples can be transferred away for safekeeping and reintroduced afterwards to restore the biodiversity of the system that was disrupted. In some cases, this method of restoration might also be considered to support plant populations that are too strained to recover on their own after devastating events such as bushfires1.
Burning questions
But even fire seasons aren't a localised event because we're all part of a deeply interconnected system in the biosphere that is Earth.
Dr Jessica McCarty, a specialist in fire management and emissions, currently holds the position of Biospheric Science Branch Chief at NASA Ames Research Center, and if that doesn't hint at the scope, her expertise also includes geospatial and data science, agriculture and food security, climate change, and land use because, as it frequently came up in our conversation, "It's all connected".
Jessica shared that through cross-continental collaboration, it was determined that fire seasons and climate observations in the Southern Hemisphere strongly predict fire activity in the Northern Hemisphere. So if, for example, Australia has an extreme fire season over our Christmas/summer period, it is likely that the Northern Hemisphere will experience a similarly extreme fire season and this will have an impact on Northern Hemisphere preparations for the coming season.
A bird's eye view
Through aerial and satellite data, geospatial observations, statistical modelling, and machine learning, we can take a bird's eye view of a system and get estimations of systems as they once were, snapshots of how they are now, and projections of what they could be.
Undoubtedly, this contributes to a lot of Jessica's work in biospheric science, and who better to help us understand the Earth better than those who can see it from space in high-resolution.
The data yielded by these types of sources and tools give us a different perspective on the data as it has for Professor Janine Illian, whose work in statistical analysis has been used in ecology for analysing and modelling populations of cranes and orangutans, plant communities for fire-adapted flora in Australia, and animal movements over terrain and in the water2.
It's also the kind of thing used for modelling the spread of pathogens, whether it's a food poisoning outbreak in the community, COVID-19, or a disease that can affect animals in the wild.
Conservation of a system
It's all about considering the system as a whole. Plants and animals each have a role in their ecosystems, so if they become extinct or removed from their systems, what impact does that have? In the case of the Tasmanian tiger, a predator is no longer present to manage prey populations3 or other invasive species. Or the animals that eat certain plants lose food sources they need to survive or stay healthy when the plants are destroyed or their habitats are fragmented as with the chimpanzees.
All of these examples have applications that contribute at every step of the greater de-extinction process from prevention and conservation through to de-extinction itself, rewilding, and maintaining the healthy system of our planet. In addition, research in each of these areas can feed upstream, downstream, and cross-stream to all the others in a beautifully interdisciplinary way.
So, given the range of disciplines that cross into de-extinction science, I think it's fair to say that the scope for the kind of work this applies to is, dare I say it, colossal. š
STEAM Powered
I'll be writing a little more on this later, but I have a few things on the boil this year. To keep things sustainable, STEAM Powered will be moving to a monthly release schedule.
I'm looking forward to sharing more amazing conversations and will have another for you in a couple of weeks.
Quite Interesting
All about Aussie and Aussie-based creators today. Enjoy!
My friend and author Danielle Linder has just released her new book In Seaglass, book #3 in the Red Dragon series. If you're into urban fantasy, Danielle is a bard. You can buy them here, through most ebook retailers, on Amazon in physical format, and as a subscriber reward on Patreon.
Noah Johnson (@derecycler) is a visual and fibre artist creating One of One wearable works of art from upcycled and second-hand materials. I highly recommend you also check out their TikTok @derecycler for videos of their products and process.
Tee Ken Ng is a director, video artist, graphic designer and an award-winning animator based in Perth, Australia. You may have seen his work in Tim Minchin's Leaving LA (YouTube). I've always loved and admired Tee Ken's work with stop motion and practical effects and was delighted to see that a short film documentary about him titled Tee Ken Ng has been accepted into the 42nd Edition of Le FiFA International Festival of Films on Art in Montreal, Canada.
Stephanie Ee is Luvieur (@luvieur.jpg), a Chinese-Malaysian Australian artist whose work conveys strong themes of representation, identity, and female empowerment. Love her stuff. Find Stephanie's events (Perth and Sydney) and exhibitions on her website.
I've been getting back into art again and refamiliarising myself with watercolours and sketching. Jane Blundell and Liz Steel are both Australian artists whose websites are an absolute wealth of information in the way of materials and technique, and their community of commenters have been very helpful as well as I meander my way back into this space.
Events
The WAWEB3 conference this week went brilliantly. Our panel covered some great topics around what is helping and hindering diversity and inclusion, not just in web3 but tech and society in general, and there were many incredible insights into multidisciplinary and inter-industry innovations that have the potential to make significant social impact. Congratulations to Dr Andrzej Gwizdalski and his team for another event well done.
Thanks for reading, and see you next time!
Stay curious.
ā Michele
Footnotes
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Some plant species evolved to incorporate fire into their lifecycle, but if fire occurs too frequently this can interfere with the process enough to prevent recovery. ā©
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Also crime and terrorism modelling, so you know, even more scope. ā©
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Devil Facial Tumour Disease (DFTD) has reduced the population of Tasmanian Devils by about 50%. It is a disease that would likely not have spread as widely if the Tasmanian tiger, an apex predator in that ecosystem, had been in place, as mentioned by Professor Andrew Pask, head of TIGRR lab (Thylacine Integrated Genetic Restoration Research) and scientific advisory board member at Colossal, in Cosmos). ā©