I have moved on from being a graduate student. Although I don't graduate until December, I have started a new position as a post doctoral scientist of conservation genetics at the Center for Conservation Research (CCR) at Omaha's Henry Doorly Zoo & Aquarium (OHDZA)! I will be working mostly on projects on lemurs and other species from Madagascar, throwing in the occasional elephant and big cat project to keep myself associated with main land Africa. I'm still settling in but it won't be too difficult a transition when I can see orangutans out the lab window and I get to take a daily safari walk to see all my favorite animals.
Being so close to the action I'll hopefully be able to get the inside scoop (like I did with the Indian rhino. The repro team showed us the birth video only hours after it happened!) and you know I'll be making regular visits to their enclosure to bask in the tail poof glory. I'd have to pass by sloth bears and tigers on the way there too. Darn.
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The Challenge is 2-fold:
The project with the most BACKERS will receive an extra $1,000 added to their GOAL. Our GOAL is $5,000 and we must receive 100% of our GOAL to get any of the money donated by the BACKERS. PLEASE HELP! Go to Experiment.com/liondiversity and show some support by making a donation. Any little bit helps! The more people who make donations the better. You can also help by spreading the word. The Challenge (# of BACKERS) runs from today to Friday, June 10 @ 6PM ET The Campaign (100% of GOAL) runs from today to Saturday, June 18 Your support is much appreciated! THANKS!!! If you haven’t heard yet, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Services (USFWS) has made a ruling to list the lion as two subspecies under the Endangered Species Act (ESA). Effective today, under the ESA (this is an important distinction), the lion will now be Panthera leo leo and Panthera leo melanchaita.
The ruling also includes some new regulations on hunting permit requirements. Anyone convicted of or who has pled guilty to violations of wildlife laws will be denied a permit. They will also only allow the importation of sport-hunted trophies from countries with established conservation programs and well-managed lion populations to help support and strengthen the accountability of conservation programs in other nations.
This ruling seems fair but their use of previously and currently used subspecies names may get a little convoluted in the overall scheme of things. It seems as though USFWS is showing a genuine concern in looking after the best interest of the African lion but I think more research is still needed (and not just because I’m one of the ones doing it) to make decisions that will be beneficial for both the lions and the countries they live in. The manuscript I have been working so hard on for most of the year has finally been published! My first publication, Mitochondrial Haplotype Diversity in Zambian Lions: Bridging a Gap in the Biogeography of an Iconic Species, was made live today, December 16th, 2015! I am now officially a published author! The paper is about matrelineal gene flow and genetic diversity of lions in Zambia. We found that lions in Zambia have a high level of diversity but can be separated into two sub-populations with little to no matrelineal gene flow between the two. The separation could be historical but it more likely due to an expanse of cities and roads that inhibit modern day dispersal because, when put in context with the entire range of the African lion, Zambia acts as a bridge connecting Southern and Eastern lion populations. This is all based on analysis of mitochondrial genes and the discovery of 5 sets of DNA variations (haplotypes) thus far not seen anywhere else in Africa. Here's my official citation: Curry CJ, White PA, Derr JN (2015) Mitochondrial Haplotype Diversity in Zambian Lions: Bridging a Gap in the Biogeography of an Iconic Species. PLoS ONE 10(12): e0143827. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0143827 I am currently working on a press release for this paper and I have already started writing my next publication, hopefully with two others soon to follow after that. My goal is that by the time I finish my PhD I will have at least 5 publications. Let the fun begin!
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