Latest news with #DavidWilcockson
Western Telegraph
3 days ago
- Science
- Western Telegraph
Why dolphin poo is being scooped out of West Wales waters
The 200-or-so bottlenose dolphins who frequent Cardigan Bay are the focus of an innovative research project. Collecting of the dolphins' poo will give valuable clues about their diet and behaviour. The samples are being collected by researchers from the Wildlife Trust of South and West Wales before analysis by scientists at Aberystwyth University. They are using the latest environmental DNA (eDNA) techniques to extract detailed data on the animals' diet. The researchers have to move quickly to catch the dolphins defecating. (Image: Dr Sarah Perry, Wildlife Trust of South and West Wales.) As well as showing what prey the dolphins have been feeding on and where, the tests will help build individual profiles for each one. These profiles will enable the project team to identify the dolphins' gender, the relationships between family members, population size, breeding potential and movement patterns. They will also attempt to match and compare each unique profile with individual photo ID records of bottlenose dolphins which have been gathered by the Wildlife Trust of South and West Wales over several years. The new information will inform future marine conservation efforts in Cardigan Bay and help protect the area's rare population of semi-resident dolphins. The 'Dolphin Diet Detectives: Unveiling Dolphin Diets and Engaging Communities for UK Conservation' project is being led by the Wildlife Trust of South and West Wales in collaboration with Aberystwyth University, with support from the Welsh Government's Nature Networks Fund. The project's Dr David Wilcockson and Dr Sarah Perry. (Image: Aberystwyth University) Dr Sarah Perry, Marine Conservation and Research Manager at the Wildlife Trust of South and West Wales said: "We are thrilled to be leading this groundbreaking project, which covers an area of research that we have aspired to embark on over the past decade or so. 'We are excited that it has come to fruition at a time when it is even more important that we build on our knowledge of the species in the waters around us. As part of the project, a series of community science days will give local people opportunities to find out more about the research study and help collect additional data about Cardigan Bay's dolphin population. This family of dolphins was spotted off New Quay. (Image: Sarah Michelle Wyer/Dolphin Spotting Boat Trips) Dr David Wilcockson from the Department of the Life Sciences at Aberystwyth University said: 'What is really exciting for us, aside from finding out more about what dolphins are eating and their behaviours, is the fact that we are involving the public in this work. 'They are the 'dolphin detectives' and we hope this will provide another pathway by which they can feel more connected to their local environment and encourage conservation activities beyond the project.' The project is funded by the Nature Networks Programme. It is being delivered by the Heritage Fund, on behalf of the Welsh Government.
Pembrokeshire Herald
08-05-2025
- Science
- Pembrokeshire Herald
Revealing the cells behind the biological clocks of intertidal animals
SCIENTISTS in Wales have identified the cells behind the bioclocks keeping time with tides in tiny marine organisms. The biological clock of land animals is regulated by a circadian rhythm, with biological processes such as sleeping and waking, digestion and hormone release responding to the 24-hour cycle of light and darkness. Intertidal organisms, on the other hand, regulate their biological processes to a 12.4 hour circatidal clock, which follows the ebb and flow of the tide, in addition to having 24 hour clocks. This allows them to survive in a temporally complex environment which is exposed at low tide and underwater at high tide. Dr David Wilcockson, marine biologist, from Aberystwyth University In a paper published today (Thursday 8 May 2025) in Current Biology, researchers at the Medical Research Council Laboratory of Molecular Biology in Cambridge and Aberystwyth University reveal that they have identified the clock cells and genes they think are responsible for this tidal timekeeping. The discovery marks a significant step forward in scientists' understanding of how these natural biological clocks are orchestrated at the molecular and cellular level within the brains of intertidal organisms, and could provide insight to the evolution of biological clocks. The researchers studied two species of crustaceans which inhabit the space between the high and low tide-lines -Eurydice pulchra, the speckled sea louse which is a marine relative of the woodlouse, and the amphipod Parhyale hawaiensis. By manipulating the light regime that the animals were exposed to, and the maintenance or removal of tidal cues, the researchers were able to disentangle the cells responsible for the circadian and circatidal clocks in the organisms' brains. This allowed them to discover that the crustaceans have distinct circadian and circatidal cell groups, which adjust independently to light and to mechanical stimuli (tides). Dr David Wilcockson, a marine biologist based at Aberystwyth University's Department of Life Sciences, is a co-author of the paper. He said: 'For more than six decades marine biologists and chronobiologists have known about tidal clocks that regulate the life of coastal animals by studying rhythmic behaviours of numerous marine species. However, significant progress in understanding how these clocks work has been hampered because we have never found the cells that coordinate 12.4 hour behavioural rhythms. 'This discovery is significant because we can now tinker with the clockwork of these cells to better understand the mechanisms that have evolved to keep animals to tidal time. Many of these animals evolved many millions of years before land animals, making the clocks of marine species especially fascinating.' Chee Ying Sia, a PhD student and joint first-author of the study from the Medical Research Council Laboratory of Molecular Biology in Cambridge, which led the research, said: 'It was exhilarating to identify, for the first time, a small cluster of cells capable of tracking the tidal time in the brains of intertidal crustaceans. These cells might just be the gateway to revealing the mechanisms of tidal timekeeping. The molecular rhythms that we see in these marine animals also hint at clock mechanisms that are different from what we have learned from circadian clocks of terrestrial model organisms.' The research was funded by the UKRI Medical Research Council and Boehringer Ingelheim Fonds, and was led by Dr Michael Hastings (Cambridge).
