Virtual Ark - Star Species

The Great Yellow Bumblebee by Dave Goulson

I’m Professor of Biology at the University of Sussex, and I’ve been studying bumblebees for the last thirty years. I also set up the Bumblebee Conservation Trust in 2006, which from shaky beginnings has grown to become a thriving organisation with 12,000 members. I also write popular science books about insects, to try to raise their profile and encourage awareness of their vital importance to the functioning of our planet.

I first became interested in bumblebees because they are clever – the intellectual giants of the insect world – and I spend many years studying their behaviour, including how they learn which flowers are most rewarding, and how they navigate through the landscape. I couldn’t help but notice that they also seemed to be disappearing; many species of bumblebee described in older books were nowhere to be found. My research changed focus, to trying to understand the causes of their decline and what we might do to reverse it. 

The great yellow bumblebee is one of many species that have suffered badly in recent decades. One hundred years ago it was found across the British Isles and much of Europe, but it has disappeared from most of its range. In the UK, it clings on now only in the far north and west of Scotland, particularly the Outer Hebrides. It is a species found in flower-rich meadows, a habitat that was once common in Europe but was almost entirely lost to intensive farming. In the UK, we destroyed 97% of our hay meadows between 1930 and 1987. Associated species, such as the great yellow bumblebee and the corncrake, simply cannot survive in the flower-free, pesticide-soaked monocultures of crops that have replaced them.

Species such as the great yellow bumblebee will not return to our countryside unless we switch to truly sustainable farming methods, ones that work with nature rather than trying to control everything with chemical inputs. In the meantime, we can all do our bit by trying to make our gardens and urban areas more wildlife friendly, planting them with pollinator-friendly wildflowers and eliminating use of pesticides.

The Polar Bear by Sophie Watson

My name is Sophie Watson and my research investigates the gut microbiota and parasite ecology of Arctic species, including the polar bear, in relation to climate-mediated shifts in land use, diet and contaminant exposure. My research, which was designed in collaboration with my supervisor Dr Sarah Perkins, was the brain baby of various research projects that I worked after my time as an undergraduate student. When I left undergrad, I worked on projects including the USGS Grizzly Bear Research Project, which used non-invasive genetic sampling to estimate the bear population size in and around Glacier National Park in Montana, and a project which aimed to look at the role of bears as important seed dispersers in coastal regions of Alaska. While working on these projects, I spoke with various researchers and government personnel and realised that very little was known of the parasites and diseases of bears, including arguably the most iconic bear species that is a flagship species for conservation and climate change, the polar bear. I couldn’t understand why so little was understood about something so central to the health and conservation of this species, and so I started to bridge the gaps. It wasn’t difficult to get excited about working with such an important species – although the outlook for this species is less than ideal.

The Arctic, which is home to some of the most extreme and pristine environments on Earth, faces unprecedented rates of warming. As well as directly impacting Arctic species by means of habitat loss and degradation, climate change prompts a surplus of indirect impacts to the health and survival of Arctic species. Rapid reductions in the extent and duration of sea ice habitat not only alters sea ice dynamics, but also the biodiversity and productivity of marine ecosystems of the Arctic shelves, impacting prey abundance and distribution across the whole food web. Such changes in prey availability alter trophic interactions and lead to shifts in host distributions and habitat use, forcing species in to new, less productive areas. In addition, warming temperatures also make the Arctic more accessible to human exploration. Arctic habitats used to be among the least anthropologically disturbed on Earth. However, in recent years there have been dramatic rates of increase in mining and petroleum exploration and development, commercial wildlife uses, ship traffic, and long-range pollution, all of which are potential drivers of change in the population, distribution, and health of many species in the Arctic, including the polar bear. Pollution in the Arctic is a major conservation concern. Many contaminants accumulate in species that are low in the trophic web and magnify as they move up each trophic level. This means long-lived, high trophic feeders, such as pinnipeds and polar bears, bioaccumulate the highest levels of contaminants.

As a wide-ranging, low-density apex predator, polar bears are widely acknowledged as important indicators of Arctic ecosystem health. The loss of our polar bears is a saddening thought, but what their loss indicates for the rest of the Arctic ecosystem is truly disturbing.

The Partula Snail by Angus Davison

I am an evolutionary geneticist at the University of Nottingham, working to understand how species form and why individuals sometimes show inherited variation in evolutionarily important characters. Snails are my ‘go-to’ animal, partly because they are usually common and easy to collect, but also because the shell preserves a record of underlying genes that are coded in the genome, whether it is pink, brown or yellow, or spirals to the right or to the left.

Over many years, studies on snails have brought about a fundamental understanding of biology and evolution, including helping understand aspects of human genetics and development. In fact, much of what we have come to know about snail evolution and genetics was first discovered from studies of the Partula snails from French Polynesia, led by Frozen Ark founder Professor Bryan Clarke and colleagues. Unfortunately, since the 1970s these snails have become extinct - or nearly so - because of the ill-fated introduction of other species, to the extent that some now only survive in an international captive breeding programme.

Recently, I have been fortunate to have a Frozen Ark intern student, who has organised and bar coded Partula snails which were collected in the 1980s and have been kept frozen at the University of Nottingham ever since. I hope that these specimens may in the future be used to understand what was lost and so guide the ongoing reintroduction programme. However, as much information can be gleaned from the shell and the frozen specimens, we can also use modern-day genomic methods to continue to understand the evolutionary genetics of these snails, and the process by which new species form.

The European Hedgehog by Abigail Gazzard

I’m a PhD student based at the University of Reading. For the past 6 years, I have been researching hedgehogs in the UK. The opportunity to study this well-loved mammal came about following the completion of my MSc Wildlife Management and Conservation which, of course, also involved a lot of hedgehog surveys! I had always aspired to be a researcher in the field of conservation science, so it was a dream come true to commence my PhD.

Hedgehogs are one of the nation’s favourite animals, and rightly so. They are unusual yet adorable in appearance, and their interesting characteristics – such as their noisy snuffling noses, their ability to curl up into a ball, and the surprising speed at which they can scuttle around – make them all the more endearing. Moreover, hedgehogs are a species that we can observe from our own home: hedgehogs favour garden habitats, and many householders like to leave out food or nest boxes specifically for them.

Despite the public’s overwhelmingly positive attitude towards hedgehogs, there is evidence of a worrying decline in hedgehog numbers in the UK and in Europe. The drivers of this decline are complex but seem likely to involve habitat loss and alterations, growing badger populations (badgers are intraguild predators of hedgehogs), roads and traffic, chemical use (e.g. pesticides) and climate-driven changes in invertebrate prey availability and hibernation success. Nowadays in the UK, hedgehogs are more commonly found in towns and cities than in rural areas, though they still face numerous challenges in urban environments. For example, it is not completely clear to what extent hedgehogs may be limited by lack of connectivity between gardens, high levels of artificial lighting, disturbance by humans and pets, urban construction works, noise pollution and so on.

It is really important to get people engaged with helping hedgehogs as it may open people’s eyes to conserving and taking action for all sorts of vulnerable species. Fortunately, there are lots of straightforward ways in which we can all help hedgehogs. If you have a garden, the best thing you can do is ensure that it is accessible to hedgehogs on as many sides as possible. You could also scatter food around, leave out a dish of water and provide suitable nesting sites. If you don’t have a garden, it is still invaluable to keep an eye out for hedgehogs in the wild (including towns and cities) and report any sightings to your local records centre or bighedgehogmap.org. Finally, spreading awareness is key in conservation and for that reason I am looking forward to seeing hedgehogs featured on the Virtual Ark!