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36C3 preroll music
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Angel: Right now I'd like to welcome our
first speaker on stage. The talk will be
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about protecting the wild and I'll hand
over to her. Please give her a warm round
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of applause.
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Applause
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Jutta Buschbom: Thank you very much for
the introduction. My name is Jutta
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Buschbom, I'm an evolutionary biologist.
That is my background. I did do my PHD at
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the University of Chicago working on
little fungees that live in symbiosis with
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algae and form colorful rocks, colorful
crust on rocks. I then did a Postdoc in
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bioinformatics and after that moved back
into organismal biology, working in forest
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genetics. And the ten years I worked in
forest genetics for the first time I
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encountered questions that were with
regard to application, and I found out
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that actually moving from research to
application is not trivial. So what I'm
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going to present is a high tech way using
genomic data to protect biodiversity in a
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way that you can actually reach
application and use conservation genomic
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tools. So this summer the draft of the
report of the Intergovernmental Science
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Policy Panel for Biodiversity and
Ecosystem Services came out and its
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results were quite warning. It stated that
around a million animal and plant species
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are currently stated and of those...half
of those species are already dead species
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walking. So because due to the destruction
of the habitats or habitat deterioration,
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they are not able to reproduce in a
sustainable way anymore. A third of the
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total species extinction rate risk to date
has arisen in the last 25 years. And just
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to give you an idea about the relation we
are talking about...currently the rate of
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extinction risk is already at least ten to
hundreds times higher than it has averaged
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over the past 10 million years. And within
these 10 million years there were the Ice
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Ages, for example. And most of the
extinction risk is due to the fact of land
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and sea use change. The report also talks,
even talks about that we already seem to
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have transgressed a proposed precautionary
planetary boundary, which means within the
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boundary we have a stable biological
system. But having transgressed it, we
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might already be in a transition to a new
state that we have no way to find out how
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this state is going to look like. So all
of these facts that the report is stating
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are actually pretty negative. And I was
quite happy to read that they also present
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that there are actually people who do
better than most of us. And they point out
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that many practices of indigenous people
and local communities actually conserve
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and sustain wild and domesticated
biodiversity quite well. Today, a higher
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proportion of the remaining terrestrial
biodiversity lies in areas managed and
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held by indigenous people. And these
ecosystems are more intact and less
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declining, less rapidly declining. So we
have examples of lifestyles that actually
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do better than most of us. And I know the
solutions won't be simple and it won't be
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easy to get there but we can look to what
these people do better than we do. All of
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this sounds...it's a global report and it
sounds kind of like far away, like
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probably somewhere in the tropics, but
actually threats to biodiversity happen
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also directly in front of our own front
doors. This summer a paper came out from
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two colleagues from the University of
Greifswald, who had analyzed the long term
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data set about leaf beetles. And they were
asking if we already have a decline of
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leaf beetles in Central Europe. So they
compiled long term data sets of leaf
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beetle observations for Central Europe,
starting from 1900 now to 2017, so
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spanning a hundred and twenty years. And
what they find is that systematic reports
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on leaf beetles and leaf beetle
observations are increasing during this
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time interval, time span. But despite the
fact that we have...like in the last two
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decades, we had very high numbers of
reports and observations for leaf beetles,
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the number of species, the orange line, is
declining. It's slightly declining. But
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the question is, is this real or not? And
what was most worrisome to the authors is
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that in the data set, the number of
species here in orange that were having
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more reports was declining, while the
number of species that showed less reports
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than before is expanding. So this kind of
long term datasets are very hard to
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interpret and many factors can contribute
to those patterns. And it's not clear if
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this pattern is statistically significant.
But if you take a step back and consider
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your background knowledge, your prior
knowledge about the state of the world, do
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you say, like, how does the current state
look like? Does it look good or rather
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worrisome? And then with that knowledge,
tell me that these results are an
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artifact or a bias. I'm worried that once
we have statistical significant signal in
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this dataset, it will be already too late.
So right now, I've been talking about leaf
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beetles and beetles are the largest group
within insects with about 400.000 species.
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Leaf beetles are a large family of about
50.000 species which are worldwide
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distributed. And here in Germany, we have
over 470 leaf beetle species. So how do we
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actually know how many species there are
and who actually counted all these
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species? And is that just a task of
taxonomists. Taxonomy is the science of
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naming and defining, including
circumscribing and classifying groups of
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biological organisms on the basis of
shared characters. So one could have the
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picture of some woman with a funny hat
running over a meadow catching like
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butterflies or some guy mushroom hunter
crawling through the forest trying to find
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mushrooms. And it's true, as biodiversity
scientists we spent a lot of time outdoors
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and yeah...on the other hand, biotaxonomy
is a high-tech science today. So
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taxonomists actually take up new
technological tools and developments to
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help them identify and describe,
understand the species. So taxonomists
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actually are often experts in, for
example, microscopy, mathematics,
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biochemistry, even proteomics and
genomics. So throughout the talk, I'm
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going to compile this list of people and
experts we're going to need to protect
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biodiversity if we want to do this on the
basis of genetic data. Right now, the list
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is quite empty. The first entry is a
taxonomists, but that will change quickly
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and taxonomists are a subgroup of
evolutionary biologists mostly. So I told
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you as taxonomists and biodiversity
scientists take up technology and...so as
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soon as computers came about and the
internet started people started to use
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that to compile information about species,
and today we have several global resources
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available at the species level and above
the species level. So we biodiversity
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scientists were among the first who
defined biodiversity information
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standards. We have a global catalog of
life. A list of all named species. The
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Global Biodiversity Information Facility
has an aim to bring together information
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from different sources and they are
compiling, producing this wonderful map.
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This is leaf beetles, all the records
about leaf beetles that we have in the
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world. And it looks like as if leaf
beetles are highly associated with third
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world economics. However that clearly is
an artifact and it just shows that we need
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many more taxonomists and biodiversity
scientists all over the world to find and
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identify leaf beetles. So we also need
biodiversity informaticians to help us
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compile global lists and distribute
knowledge. So far I have been talking
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about species which is a simplification.
The question is what is...what are species
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actually? And so we need to talk about
genetic diversity within and between
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species. And I'm going to do so using
gulls, which most of us might know. Here
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in Europe, we have two large gulls of the
genus Larus. One is in the front, the
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lighter gray is our Silbermöwe. And in the
back is our Heringsmöwe, the dark one. And
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I'm going to use German names because the
English names go crosswise and that's
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completely confusing. So I will stick with
the German names. Here in Europe these two
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species seem to be really fine species
because they barely interbreed, so they
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don't hybridize. However, if you take a
step back and look at the genus in
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general, you see that the species of the
genus are distributed kind of ringwise
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around the Arctic. And so the idea is
that, say during the Ice Age, all of this
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area was glaciated and the gulls retreated
to a refuge here near the Caspian Sea. And
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then after the ice retreated, the gulls
moved back north. One branch moved into
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Europe forming our Heringsmöwe and
another branch then moved counterclockwise
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around the Arctic, producing different
morphotypes, different species across the
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Bering Strait and then into North America.
There the dark blue one is...I'm
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simplifying, the equivalent of our
European Silbermöwe, the American
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Silbermöwe. Then the idea is that some
individuals crossed back to Europe and
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formed our European Silbermöwe. And while
all of these species here are
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interbreeding, so they hybridize. Only
when this ring is closed those two species
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don't interbreed anymore. And the big
question is, are we actually dealing with
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one single species or are we dealing with
different species that just happened to
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hybridize more or less? The question is
not trivial because it has consequences
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for protection. If we are dealing with one
single species, all the gulls in Eurasia
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could go extinct and it wouldn't matter
because we still would have the gulls in
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North America. However, if we have
different species in all of these areas,
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we would need to protect individuals or
the species on a regional level and
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protect all of these different species. So
to investigate this question about: Do we
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have different species? And what were the
evolutionary processes and histories that
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brought about the species? A group of
scientists investigated that using DNA
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sequences. And on the left, you have the
model, the theoretical model of the ring
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species. And here on the right you have
reality. And the scientists found that the
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reality is always much more complex. So,
for example, they found two refuges or
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they proposed two refuges. But what they
found was that genetic diversity was
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correlated with those species or
morphotypes. So what that also means is
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that genetic diversity is cultivated with
geographic origin. What we learn from this
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type of analysis is we learn about
evolutionary processes and history, about
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variability and differentiation of our
gene flow and migration, about speciation
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processes. That we all need to understand
our species, which will allow us to
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protect them. So we need evolutionary
biologists who do follow genetics and
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population genetics. So once we found out
that one can use genetic diversity, to
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infer geographic origin because genetic
diversity is correlated with geography,
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people immediately said: 'Okay, we can use
it for conservation applications.'. And
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it's also...we learned that we...often it
is unclear what is a species, species
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boundaries are unclear and some species
have huge distribution ranges with
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different clusters of viability within
this huge range. So we know that we need
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to protect within species genetic
diversity, which means that we need to
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understand within species population
structure and we need to build useful and
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reliable models of population structure.
These models are actually required for all
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of our applications. They are required for
monitoring, for example, for conservation
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strategies, for functional adaptation and
adaptability, questions of productability
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of different provenances, its impact on
management regimes, breeding strategies,
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and also for enforcement applications.
From the studies I showed you before with
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the gulls we also know that we need to
approach the question of a population
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structure on a distribution range wide
scale. So here's the map produced by
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EUFORGENE, the European Network for forest
reproductive material for one of our
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native oaks, the sessil oak. And the dots
are the sites for genetic conservation
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units. And so that is one strategy how to
represent within species genetic diversity
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and how to sample it. And you can see this
is a hypothetical example, but we likely
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will see a gradient from west to east or
might see one at this scale. Then once we
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have these kind of global data sets, we
can go to the fine scale and maybe, for
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example, do a national genetic monitoring.
And we will find much finer scale
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gradients. We also will find especially
for first trace outliers, so for stands
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that don't fit the usual pattern. And that
is because the first reproductive material
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has been moved around a lot. And so these
lighter or darker dots is material that
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was moved to Germany from the outside. And
we only will identify these outliers if we
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have the whole reference dataset. If we
don't have the whole reference dataset, we
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might not identify these outliers - stands
with a different history. Or in a worst
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case, these outliers might actually bias
our gradients. And we are always talking
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about very slight gradients. So it's easy
to bias these gradiants, dilute them, so
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we actually won't get the results we need.
To compile these kinds of reference
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datasets that's huge collaborative efforts
because people need to go out into the
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field and collect the reference samples
and that might be scientists, that might
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be people from local communities, citizen
scientists, managers, owners, government
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officials who provide background
information, maps, distribution
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information and also in many parts of the
world might protect the people who are
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actually collecting the samples. And it
might be conservation activists and NGOs.
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So once the samples have been collected
they need to be stored somewhere for the
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long term and the information needs to be
databased. And that is the work of
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scientific connections, which are mostly
at natural history museums and there the
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samples are processed. They're organized
in ways that you can find them again. All
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the metadata is entered, which curators
do, collection managers, preparators,
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technical staff at the scientific
collections. So once we have these kind of
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data sets, large scale data sets, what are
we actually doing with them? So the
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foundation for all of our applications is
population structure and there
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specifically population assignment. So the
process is set first. We decide on a
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question and design our project
accordingly that we can answer the
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question. Then we need to infer the
population structure model and optimize
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it. In the next step we need to check if a
model actually is good enough for
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application because we might have found
the best model, but it might still not be
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good enough for application. So we need to
test that. And that is the step of
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population assignment or predictive
assignment. And then in the end, we want
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to test our hypothesis. Are the two stands
different or does an individual come from
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stand A or from stand B? And here we
identify error rates and accuracy. So this
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whole process is very statistical. And so
the analysis of these reference data they
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need to be accompanied by biostatisticians
who can tell us how to analyze our data.
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So what is the state-of-the-art right now?
What kind of geographic resolution do we
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actually get of this non model specie
currently? And I'm going to present the
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example of an African timber tree
species, which is a very valuable timber.
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It's one example but basically all results
for species who have large distribution
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ranges and are continuously distributed
and are also long-lived, are very similar.
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So this kind of results seem to be species
independent. So the species are Milica
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regia and excelsa, African teak, which
cannot be grown in plantations for timber
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quality. So it is harvested unsustainably
from natural forests. It's distributed in
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West, Central and East Africa. Here's a
black rectangle. And a group of a dozen
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scientists got together and they actually
sampled a reference dataset for these two
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species. It's about over 400 samples, they
analyzed four marker systems, resulting in
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a total of something like 100 markers,
genetic markers, and then they optimized
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the population model and used different
parameter settings. And we're going to
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concentrate here on the best solution that
they found. And basically this rectangle
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here is the black one over here. So the
resolution is... they found population
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structure with clear clusters. So the
populations and the species from West
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Africa can be distinguished from those
populations in Central Africa. And the
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ones in East Africa can be differentiated.
So that is really good. So we have
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population structure. We know their
signal. The problem is still that our
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resolution is much lower than we would
need to have it because we basically need
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resolution at least on a country level,
because most of the laws are national. So
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it might be legal to harvest a tree in one
country, but not in another country. So we
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need to get our resolution down to country
level or even to regional level. If you
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want to distinguish, was the tree
harvested in a national park in a
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protected area or outside in a managed
forest. And when as biodiversity
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scientists, we don't know how to continue,
one thing is to look for what people do
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with model organisms and specifically what
people do in human population genomics
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because there thousands of populations
geneticists are working and there is a
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completely different funding background
due to the interest of the medical and the
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pharma industry. So they are always
advanced. What we can learn from there,
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from the human populations genomics is
that we need two features. One is we
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already know that we need distribution
wide sampling, which provides a spatial
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context. The second feature is that we
need genome wide sequencing, preferably
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genome sequencing, which provides us steps
in time because our genomes are archives
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of our evolutionary history. They are
records of all the processes and events
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and these steps in time then translate
also into resolution. Once we have these
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two features, actually these reference
datasets open Pandora's box. Suddently we
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can ask all kinds of questions and
objectives, even those that we still don't
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know. We can develop all kinds of
applications which is done for humans.
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Currently, there are at least four global
datasets on human diversity. These are
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very widely reused and these big datasets
- so they are big data with regard to the
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number of samples and also the genomes or
the genome representations and this
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results in very information rich data
which initiates analytical development so
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people continuously are developing new
statistical methods. And right now, a new
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wave is coming in of these methods. So
once you have these global datasets,
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people start in human populations
genomics, started to do these intense
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regional samplings. And this is the
example of the United Kingdom Biobank.
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It's a project with 500.000 volunteers,
they are all UK citizens from all over the
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islands. And each individual was genotyped
in a vet lab for 820.000 markers. That's
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completely I mean, that's a different
number than the 100 or 1000...in
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biodiversity scientists we normally
analyse a maximum of a couple of 10.000
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markers. So that's a completely different
number. But then statistical geneticists
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come. They do some weird and wonderful
voodoo and they derive 96 million markers
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per genome that is per individual from
these 820.000 markers that were produced
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in the lab. So that's a hundred fold
increase. And once you have this kind of
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dataset for a genome, you suddenly or you
finally become country level and within
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country level resolution. So these panels
are examples. So the first panel shows
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individuals who were born in Edinburgh and
the question was "Where were people born
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who had a similar ancestral background,
genetic background?". And what they found
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was that was all over Scotland and
Northern Ireland. Northern Yorkshire was
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even more local. So people from Yorkshire
don't seem to get around a lot. For London
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the situation is completely different.
That is what we would expect because
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London is a people magnet. People move
there all the time. They meet there, they
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get children and the kids born in London,
their genetic ancestry has nothing to do
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with London. It's from all over the place,
from the British Isles and the world. So
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that's why the colors are strongly
dissolved. So this study came out also
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this summer. And it's the first time that
I have seen that we actually really can
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achieve regional resolution. And I find
this possibility for biodiversity science
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really exciting. So it was made possible
by very sophisticated statistical
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approaches which are able to analyze
genetic data from highly complex
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evolutionary and ecological systems. And
at the same time these analyses are able
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to handle big data. We we're talking about
gigabytes and terabytes of data and
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results. So a statistical geneticist are
developing new methods of data
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representation to handle this amount of
data. And then we are able to sufficiently
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extract the signal for a very specific
question from data which are very low
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signal to noise ratio. So to get there, we
need many experts and specialists. So we
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need statistical geneticists, big data
experts who also might contribute machine
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learning expertise. We need molecular
biologists who know how to sequence
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complex genomes. We now need
bioinformatics with an expertise in
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genomics for assembly, annotation and
alignment of genomic sequences. The result
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is actually this: This is the author list
for the thousands genomes project
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reference data set, and I don't expect you
to be able to read it, but the bold type
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is of interest because it shows all the
different tasks that are necessary to
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produce a standardized and highly cleaned
reverence dataset. So the whole author
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list is something like 1.5 pages long and
even considering that some authors will
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have contributed to several tasks. The
publications for reference datasets mostly
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have author lists that are far over 50
people. So they are huge collaborative
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efforts. Now we take the step into
biodiversity science. Here these are eight
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gastrotrichs, they are little worm like...
organisms who live in the sediments of
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freshwater lakes and marine sediment. They
are in general a couple of hundreds micro
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meters large. And I don't have any
numbers, but my guess would be that maybe
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worldwide, a hundred to a thousand people
actually work on these species. There are
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800 species of gastrotrichs. So let's say
there's one, two, maybe three experts per
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species for these organisms. So how are
these three people going to manage all
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these tasks to produce a reference
dataset? You might say, well, it's
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gastrotrichs, I mean, have never heard
about them. Maybe they are not so
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important. Maybe you don't need a
reference data sets, but actually some of
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those species are bioindicators for water
quality. So what we observe right now is a
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gap for biodiversity conservation. In
model organisms, we have Pandora's Box
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open. We have all the statistical analyses
at our hands to analyze our data sets.
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However, in none model organisms, we are
still stuck with summary statistics that
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don't provide us the resolution that we
need. And we know that to close this gap,
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even for a single species, it's a huge
effort. But at the same time, we have over
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35.000 species listed by scientists which
need already now effective protection. So
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we need to find a way to close this gap
and actually move in this direction. And
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the good thing is, so all of this... in
biodiversity science, in academia, and we
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need to make the transition over the
conservational genomic gap into the big
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loop of real world conservation tasks. And
the good thing is we already know what we
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have to do. So we need to have reference
data sets, distribution range wide. We
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need to have statistics. And it's going to
be big data. So we need collection
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management, data management and an
analysis environment. So looking at
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different ingredients or different steps
the first we need is a general data
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infrastructure for global diversity of
reference data sets that actually can be
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used across species for preferably as many
species as possible and provide a working
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environment for biodiversity scientists
and experts. It should be user friendly so
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it can be used by scientists, but also
that people from local communities and
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citizen scientists can add their
observation data and their data into this
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data infrastructure. I have listed quite a
lot of features that these kind of
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infrastructures should have. And I'm going
to argue that these features are not some
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nice to have, but actually some must have.
Because our goal is always application. So
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we need developers, managers and curators
for data infrastructures. Since our goal
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is application, our main features are
quality control and error reduction. These
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are the basis. So that our conservation
tools can be robustly and reliably applied
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under real world operating conditions. And
the way to achieve quality and error
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reduction is through chains of custody. So
it means that from project of sign, from
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the questions through all the steps that
are necessary to produce a reference data
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set and then...so from sample collection,
genomic statistical analysis down to
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application. These steps need to be
documented and standardized. They need to
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be, each one of them needs to be validated
and reproducible. They should be modular
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so they can be user friendly. And the
whole chain of custody needs to be
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scalable. So if our chains of custody have
these characteristics, we actually will
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have tools that will work in everyday
life. So we need professional developers
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and programmers who are able to produce
these very collaborative softwares. We
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need free and open source experts. So we
always can ensure that our code and that
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our infrastructures are still integer and
we can check them. And I'm a biologist, I
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don't have any background in hardware, but
I've heard a couple of talks here in the
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conference about Green IT. And I have
the feeling we should have people who know
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hardware and software and know how to
develop these high tech tools in a way
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sustainable so that by developing these
tools, we don't use more resources than we
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are trying to protect. So I've shown all
these features and characteristics that
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the software should have. And I'm arguing
that these features are necessary because
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of the reality we find us in. It is one of
rising over-exploitation and destruction
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of nature. So the extent of environmental
crimes is up in the billions. All
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environmental crime together, the green
bubbles are only second to drug associated
-
crimes. They are up there with
counterfeiting or human trafficing. So
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these are multi-billion enterprises. They
are often transnational and industries
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with huge profits. So if there's some
crime, some mafia boss, some criminal
-
manager who just bribed a government
official somewhere in the neck in the
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woods, it just would make sense that that
person would not wait or not take the
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risks to be discovered just because some
customs officer pulls out a container
-
somewhere in the harbor, for example,
opens it and says "This looks kind of
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weird. Let's take a sample, send it to a
lab." and then a population geneticist
-
comes back and says "Oh, yes, this sample
is not from area A as documented, but
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actually it's from area B and it was
illegally logged." If we have reference
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data sets, information rich reference data
sets, they become highly valuable and they
-
need protection themselves against
manipulation and destruction. So we will
-
need to think about IT security from the
beginning. Also, these data sets are often
-
very politically sensitive because if it
is shown that in a certain country there
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is the illegal logging repeatedly, that
country might not be too excited about
-
this information. So we need to think
about IT security experts. So my hope is
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that these kind of very high tech digital
conservation tools can actually contribute
-
to the U.N. Sustainable Development Goals
by empowering indigenous people, local
-
communities and also us to protect and
force and sustainably use our lands and
-
our biodiversity by providing some
management and law enforcement tools. So
-
we need people from around the world,
users from around the world who use these
-
tools and help to develop them further and
to maintain them. And finally here, these
-
high tech tools will just another
technological fix. If we don't manage to
-
get our back down, our way of life down to
sustainable levels. So what we need is to
-
today...this year, the Earth Overshoot Day
was at the end of July. So at the end of
-
July, we had used all the resources that
we had available for the whole year. And
-
we need to get this back to the end of the
year so that our resources actually
-
sustain us for the whole year. The graphic
here for Germany suggests that we are on a
-
good way. We are reducing our resource
consumption and maybe even our biocapacity
-
moves up a little bit. So actually it
seems that our personal lifestyles and
-
choices make a difference and we just need
to close this gap here much quicker. So
-
protecting biodiversity needs all of us to
achieve that. And with that, thank you
-
very much.
-
Applause
-
Angel: So thank you Jutta for this very
interesting talk and the very valuable
-
work you're doing. We have three mics
here. Please line up at the microphones if
-
you have any questions or suggestions or
want to participate and work together with
-
Jutta. We have one question from the
Internet, so please Signal-Angel start.
-
Signal-Angel: Why do wild plant species
within a genus are further apart than wild
-
animal species within a genus?
Angel: Could you repeat it, please?
-
Signal-Angel: Why do wild plant species
within a genus are further apart than wild
-
animal species within a genus?
Jutta: I'm not sure I understand the
-
background for the question.
Mic 1: Because animals move and plants
-
don't move.
Jutta: Oh, okay. If that is the idea
-
behind the question. Plants actually move,
too. They don't move as individuals, but
-
they move their genetic material through
pollen or fragments. So actually diversity
-
in plants and in animals can be quite
similar. So the idea is that plants are
-
just stuck and should have a completely
different population structure does not
-
hold because plants move around their
genetic material through seeds, through
-
pollen, through vegetative propagules.
Angel: So thank you microphone 1 for
-
helping out. Please ask your question. Mic
1: So my question is about the success
-
factor of it. If you think of this,
whatever database being set up there and I
-
think it's gonna be a huge database...I
downloaded my own genome on the Internet.
-
It was about 150 megabytes. And if we
multiply that, I think the genetic
-
variation from one person to another is
about 1 percent only. So we can compress
-
that to 4 megabytes per person. If we
sequence all the humans in the world, that
-
would be 32 petabytes, that would cost
approximately 15 billion dollars. And
-
that's only for the storage. Now comes the
entire management. Of course, we don't
-
want to digitize all the human genome, but
rather the plants and animal species
-
genome. So it's a huge data program. And
what would be for you the success factors
-
for this thing to really fly? And did you
talk to organizations like WikiData or
-
others or where would it ideally be
hosted? At a university or an
-
international nonprofit or who would be
running the thing?
-
Jutta: Yeah, I mean, it's just really big
data. I think our first goal is not to
-
think about having all predicted 5 to 10
million species be sequenced on a
-
population level. I think we need to think
about the next step. And there it would
-
make sense to start with species that are
actually highly exploited, like many
-
timber species and also many marine
fishes. I think that's where we should
-
start. And to host this kind of data I
think it should be in political
-
independent hands. So it should be with an
NGO or with the U.N., some organization
-
that is independent.
Mic 1: Are you the first to think about
-
this or are there existing initiatives?
Jutta: There are actually existing
-
initiatives. I have been in contact with
the Forest Stewardship Council and they
-
are actually starting to sample their
concessions and initiated to build up the
-
samples, they work together with Kew
Botanical Gardens and the U.S. Forest
-
Service. And right now they're analyzing
the samples, using isotopes which is
-
another method which is very powerful and
can also produce geographic information.
-
And so, yeah, so people are moving in this
way. So, yeah, I think the idea is out
-
there, just we have to start and we have
to really do it and provide one
-
infrastructure so that we can combine, for
example, morphological data, isotope data
-
and genomic data into one dataset, which
will increase our resolution and our
-
reliability.
Angel: Okay. Microphone number two,
-
please.
Mic 2: Thank you for your valuable talk.
-
My question would be you'd start your talk
with the possible decrease of leaf beetles
-
in the data set you showed on slide number
six there was an increase in leaf beetle
-
population until the 70s, something about
that. Is there a possible explanation for
-
that?
Jutta: Yeah, I believe it is, because
-
people started to much more systematically
observe leaf beetles. So it's a sample
-
effort. And also at that time the people -
so it's a multi-people collaboration who
-
actually has assembled this dataset so the
people who are part of this collaboration
-
they edit their own private data sets. And
that's why you have an increase I think.
-
While the people from the nineteen
hundreds, nineteen hundred ten you only
-
can use the data that is available in
publications and samples in museums or in
-
scientific collections. I think that is
the reason why you have the sharp
-
increase.
Mic 2: Thank you.
-
Angel: So we have another question of
microphone number two.
-
Mic 2: Thank you for your fine talking.
Excuse me. Maybe my question is a bit off
-
topic. Do you think the methods and roles
that you identified in your talk could be
-
transferred to the assessment of raw
materials? I'm thinking about metals?
-
Jutta: Maybe the data infrastructure, like
if you wanted to collect raw metals or
-
materials from all over the world and...a
sampleized scientific collection and to
-
have kind of a reference dataset that
might work, actually. But the genomics
-
obviously won't. So that part of what you
would need to use different methods from
-
physics, obviously. But actually the
infrastructure, certain parts will be
-
quite similar. I think so, yes.
Angel: So we have one more question from
-
the Internet.
Signal-Angel: Who does contract a
-
freelance evolutionary biologist? Can you
give an example of this kind of work you
-
proposed?
Jutta: So I see this gap between science
-
and applications, that we need these
applications and there's a huge potential
-
for these applications. We know that
illegal logging and that is my background,
-
but doesn't seem to be much different, for
example, in marine fisheries. We know that
-
there is this huge amount of illegal
logging and timber trade going on. And we
-
need to have some assets actually that
have the power to detect illegally traded
-
timber. So I think there is a huge need
for these kind of methods and
-
organizations who are interested in these
kind of methods. Our governments, their
-
companies, NGOs, customs, Interpol. So,
yeah.
-
Angel: Do we have any other questions? So
thank you again Jutta for your talk and
-
the valuable work you're doing. Please
give a warm round of applause to Jutta.
-
Applause
-
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