Virtual Report (1) - Virginia Working Landscapes: Connecting with Communities to Inform Research and Conservation

Names of the Presenters:


Dr. Amy Johnson, the program director for Virginia Working Landscapes from Smithsonians National Zoo and Conversation Biology Institute, and Sarah Wade.



Summary


In this Zoom presentation, Dr. Amy Johnson spoke primarily on the subject of birds facing hardships, mostly in Virginia, because of poor management of grasslands; And she went on to explain what Virginia Working Landscapes (VWL) is doing to combat this. It started off with talks of biodiversity and just general facts about grasslands in North America and how they are one of the most affected biomes in North America for a multitude of reasons. Once this was explained, she went into detail about the loss of birds in the previous few decades and how birds in grasslands have had the largest losses. Focusing on ground birds in Virginia, Dr. Johnson explained how VWL has worked with private landowners and farmers of grasslands in the state to survey their land to study the ground birds and help them implement solutions to keep the ground birds' populations stable in the region. This is where the bulk of the presentation was spent as there were so many ways that they worked with land owners and farmers and conducted surveys and experiments. For example, on the farmlands, farmers haying interrupts ground birds from nesting in time, and because of how fast the process is due to technology, the birds cannot flee in time. Experiments showed that by just delaying the haying time by a few weeks, the clutches of eggs that hatched and surveyed were up to 89%, and farmers participating in this could receive compensation from the state of Virginia for helping conservation efforts for the ground birds since it delays their haying season.


Convincing or Not?


Overall, I found this presentation very convincing. Dr. Johnson started out very strong with facts about grasslands, birds, and then specifically grasslands in Virginia. Within just a few minutes, we learned how North America's native grasslands have declined by 99%, insects in grasslands by 67%, over 3 billion birds have died in recent years and 700 million of them being grassland birds (the largest amount of any of the birds that died), and that two-thirds of US grasslands are on privately owned lands. That is an alarming amount of information to be thrown at you all at once, and it makes you understand right off the bat that this is a serious problem and gives her a lot of credibility. The next point that helped make the presentation convincing was that it went into great detail into how VWL is working with private landowners to better study ground birds in grasslands. Since many of Virginia's grasslands are prviately owned, they have to work with landowners in order to survey the land. Now, you may think that many private landowners would not want people going through their property to survey things, but it is quite the contrary. Those that own lots of land, most of the time own it for a reason: because they like it! They don't want the animals to go extinct on their properties and the surrounding areas. Ideally, they want their properties to be as natura l as possible and that is why they haven't just sold the land. Dr. Johnson explaining this definitely made the presentation more convincing as it added more depth to it. There is more than just going places and counting/studying animals, you actually have to interact with these land owners and show them how to better help the animals that are on their properties. And Dr. Johnson explained how they get farmers and landowners to delay haying or mowing properties for a few weeks in the year to better protect groundbirds and their hatchlings. But they do this with particular areas of each participant's properties so that they can continue to do what they normally do on some parts of their properties, but are still doing their part to help the wildlife by only using a part of their property. This also adds credibility to the project because realistically most people wouldn't want to not be able to use all of their property as it is still theirs to use and enjoy. By all the participating landowners allowing VWL to use a little bit of their properties, it creates a much larger habitat zone for the ground birds. By providing the statistics and logistics of how the project has been carried out and is evolving, it gives the viewers a better understanding of how the project works and makes all the research and facts given to us seem very legitimate, which in turnmakes it convincing.



Link to the zoom recording of the presentation



Virtual Report (2) - Breeding the Unbreedable: Assisted Reproduction in Cheetah

Names of the Presenters:


Kristen Goodhue and Dr. Adrienne Crosier


Summary


In this Zoom Presentation, Dr. Adrienne Crosier talked about the reproductive abilities of Cheetahs. Due to many factors such as the pet trade, habitat loss, and human conflict, cheetahs are endangered animals. In 1975 their numbers in the wild were estimated to be around 30,000, but now they have an estimated wild population of 7,000. If this wasn't already problematic enough, Cheetahs actually have many problems associated with procreation. Many male Cheetahs have poor-quality sperm or sperm with genetic imperfections that lead to low conception rates. Female cheetahs generally can only reproduce from ages 3-7, which is a much smaller range of reproduction years than males, so this only worsens the already low conception rates. Dr. Adrienne Crosier discusses the work to increase the cheetah population. Due to a relatively high population of Cheetahs in captivity (approximately 20% of all cheetahs), fertility and conception research is being performed. One strategy being used is collecting cheetah sperm and creating a sperm bank. By doing this, researchers can find healthy quality sperm and be able to store it for later artificial breeding. This is better than waiting and hoping that Cheetahs will breed on their own successfully because that is a rare occurrence. For females, they try and find females that can conceive offspring easily, and then transfer the embryos to younger females with healthier ovarian tissue so that the embryos can come to term and increase the probability of a healthy litter being born. The results from the research are that healthy cubs are being born regularly and the experiments are proving successful. While there are some hiccups such as faulty equipment, the results show that Cheetahs can make a comeback because of the work that is being done.


Convincing or Not?


The presentation was convincing due to all the data and information provided. The presenter started out with the problem that is facing cheetahs. By providing statistics and maps of habitat loss, it was easy to convey to the reader that cheetahs are facing a decline in population and reproduction rates. We learned how wild cheetah populations have gone from 30,000 to around 7,000 in the span of a few decades. Such a drastic drop in population displays the significance of the problems facing cheetahs. From here, we were given information on the reproduction of cheetahs. We saw pictures of sperm from cheetahs and saw the varying quality of the sperm, so that way we would understand how many male cheetahs have sperm problems and this is a main contributing factor towards their reproduction issues. Visually showing the quality issues of the sperm further conveys to the audience that this is a serious problem. The same type of logic is applied to female cheetahs later in the presentation. We learn about how ovarian and vaginal tissues in cheetahs are susceptible to pre-cancer conditions and this causes the females to have a lower chance of being able to reproduce successfully. They also displayed images of what the healthy tissue looked like, versus unhealthy tissue. By seeing this, it helps immerse the reader in what is being talked about. After this, we learned how female cheetahs between the ages 3 and 7 are the most likely to be able to reproduce, and any ages besides these are very unlikely for the cheetahs to successfully reproduce. To display this, a reproduction probability vs ages graph was displayed. In this graph, we can see how males have a larger reproduction period than females, so it makes it easy to convey that reproduction is hard for cheetahs. After all of these images, data, and information were shared, the presenter then proceeded to talk about what work was being done to help cheetahs. A sperm bank was made for cheetahs to store good-quality sperm. And transplanting embryos from older cheetahs into younger cheetahs increases the probability of successful reproduction. Data from trials was provided to show how effective embryo transplanting was. The data was from around 10 situations and we were given data on how old the original cheetah was, how old the new cheetah was, how many embryos were transplanted, and the number of cubs that were successfully birthed. The data also showed how two scenarios had faulty equipment so the embryos were all lost. This kind of transparency of what does not work for the work helps the audience feel like they are a part of the work and better relate to what is being shown to them. Giving information, explaining the problem, and then showing the solution with results is how the presenter effectively conveys their argument about cheetahs.

Link to the zoom recording of the presentation



Last modified: 1 December 2023