Wildlife documentaries miss an opportunity to highlight the diversity of nature by focusing too much on mammals and birds, according to a new study.

Congratulations to Dr Lynn Dicks, University Lecturer in Animal Ecology at the Department of Zoology on her recent appointment of Board Member for Natural England. Her responsibilities as board member will last for 3 years. Natural England is the government’s adviser for the natural environment in England. This is a Public...

In spring, female mussels were seen moving to the water’s edge and anchoring into the riverbed, with their back ends raised above the waterline.

Then they squirted out regular water jets, which landed in the water up to a metre away. Squirting cycles lasted 3-6 hours.

This behaviour has never been seen in any other mussel species.

The jets disturb the river surface and attract fish. Mussel larvae in the jets can then attach to the gills of the fish and complete their metamorphosis into adults.

“Who'd have thought that a mussel, that doesn't even have a head or a brain, knows to move to the river margin and squirt jets of water back into the river during springtime? It’s amazing!” said Professor David Aldridge in the University of Cambridge’s Department of Zoology, lead author of the report published today in the journal Ecology.

Unlike other mussel species, Unio crassus has a limited range of suitable host fishes – including minnows and chub. These species were attracted to the falling water jets.

The researchers think the mussels squirt water jets to increase the chances of their larvae attaching to the right host fishes. By being squirted into the air and not the water, the larvae are propelled greater distances from the parent mussel.

The study was carried out during spring in the Biała Tarnowska River, Poland. Six squirts were collected from each mussel for analysis – which confirmed that they contained viable mussel larvae.

Before now, there was only anecdotal evidence of this behaviour. Some scientists thought the water jets might be a way for the mussels to expel faeces.

This behaviour could explain why Unio crassus is an endangered species. Climbing out of the water to squirt makes it vulnerable to floods, destruction of river margins, and predators like mink. And its need for specific host fishes links its survival to theirs.

Understanding how this species completes its life cycle is important for its conservation under changing environmental conditions.

Reference

Aldridge, D. C. et al: Fishing for hosts: larval spurting by the endangered thick-shelled river mussel, Unio crassus. Ecology, March 2023. DOI: 10.1002/ECY.4026 

Cambridge researchers have observed a highly unusual behaviour in the endangered freshwater mussel, Unio crassus.

 

Who'd have thought that a mussel, that doesn't even have a head or a brain, knows to move to the river margin and squirt jets of water back into the river during springtime?David Aldridge Spurting Mussel Movie Mussel squirting a water jet

The text in this work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. Images, including our videos, are Copyright ©University of Cambridge and licensors/contributors as identified.  All rights reserved. We make our image and video content available in a number of ways – as here, on our main website under its Terms and conditions, and on a range of channels including social media that permit your use and sharing of our content under their respective Terms.

Yes

In spring, female mussels were seen moving to the water’s edge and anchoring into the riverbed, with their back ends raised above the waterline.

Then they squirted out regular water jets, which landed in the water up to a metre away. Squirting cycles lasted 3-6 hours.

This behaviour has never been seen in any other mussel species.

The jets disturb the river surface and attract fish. Mussel larvae in the jets can then attach to the gills of the fish and complete their metamorphosis into adults.

“Who'd have thought that a mussel, that doesn't even have a head or a brain, knows to move to the river margin and squirt jets of water back into the river during springtime? It’s amazing!” said Professor David Aldridge in the University of Cambridge’s Department of Zoology, lead author of the report published today in the journal Ecology.

Unlike other mussel species, Unio crassus has a limited range of suitable host fishes – including minnows and chub. These species were attracted to the falling water jets.

The researchers think the mussels squirt water jets to increase the chances of their larvae attaching to the right host fishes. By being squirted into the air and not the water, the larvae are propelled greater distances from the parent mussel.

The study was carried out during spring in the Biała Tarnowska River, Poland. Six squirts were collected from each mussel for analysis – which confirmed that they contained viable mussel larvae.

Before now, there was only anecdotal evidence of this behaviour. Some scientists thought the water jets might be a way for the mussels to expel faeces.

This behaviour could explain why Unio crassus is an endangered species. Climbing out of the water to squirt makes it vulnerable to floods, destruction of river margins, and predators like mink. And its need for specific host fishes links its survival to theirs.

Understanding how this species completes its life cycle is important for its conservation under changing environmental conditions.

Reference

Aldridge, D. C. et al: Fishing for hosts: larval spurting by the endangered thick-shelled river mussel, Unio crassus. Ecology, March 2023. DOI: 10.1002/ECY.4026 

Cambridge researchers have observed a highly unusual behaviour in the endangered freshwater mussel, Unio crassus.

 

Who'd have thought that a mussel, that doesn't even have a head or a brain, knows to move to the river margin and squirt jets of water back into the river during springtime?David Aldridge Spurting Mussel Movie Mussel squirting a water jet

The text in this work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. Images, including our videos, are Copyright ©University of Cambridge and licensors/contributors as identified.  All rights reserved. We make our image and video content available in a number of ways – as here, on our main website under its Terms and conditions, and on a range of channels including social media that permit your use and sharing of our content under their respective Terms.

Yes

This will help scientists to understand the basic principles by which signals travel through the brain at the neural level and lead to behaviour and learning.  

An organism's nervous system, including the brain, is made up of neurons that are connected to each other via synapses. Information in the form of chemicals passes from one neuron to another through these contact points.

The map of the 3016 neurons that make up the larva of the fruit fly Drosophila melanogaster’s brain, and the detailed circuitry of neural pathways within it, is known as a ‘connectome’.

This is the largest complete brain connectome ever to have been mapped. It is a huge advance on previous work to map very simple brain structures including the roundworm C. elegans, which only has several hundred neurons.

Imaging entire brains has until recently been extremely challenging. Now, technological advances allow scientists to image the entire brain of the fruit fly larvae relatively quickly using electron microscopy, and reconstruct the brain circuits from the resulting data.

The fruit fly larva has similar brain structures to the adult fruit fly and larger insects, and has a rich behavioural repertoire, including learning and action-selection.

“The way the brain circuit is structured influences the computations the brain can do. But, up until this point, we haven’t seen the structure of any brain except in very simple organisms,” said Professor Marta Zlatic at the University of Cambridge’s Department of Zoology and the Medical Research Council Laboratory of Molecular Biology (MRC LMB).

Zlatic led the research together with Professor Albert Cardona at the University of Cambridge’s Department of Physiology, Development and Neuroscience and the MRC LMB, and Dr Michael Winding at the University of Cambridge’s Department of Zoology. The study, which also involved collaborators from both the UK and the US, is published today in the journal Science.

She added: “Until now, the actual circuit patterns involved in most brain computations have been unknown. Now we can start gaining a mechanistic understanding of how the brain works.”

Current technology is not yet advanced enough to map the connectome of more complex animals such as large mammals. But because all brains involve networks of interconnected neurons, the researchers say that their new map will be a lasting reference for future studies of brain function in other animals.

“All brains of all species have to perform many complex behaviours: for example they all need to process sensory information, learn, choose food, and navigate their environment. In the same way that genes are conserved across the animal kingdom, I think that the basic circuit patterns that drive these fundamental behaviours will also be conserved,” said Zlatic.

To build a picture of the fruit fly larva connectome, the team used thousands of slices of the larva’s brain imaged with a high-resolution electron microscope, to reconstruct a map of the fly’s brain - and painstakingly annotated the connections between neurons. As well as mapping the 3016 neurons, they mapped an incredible 548,000 synapses.

The researchers also developed computational tools to identify likely pathways of information flow and different types of circuit patterns in the insect’s brain. They found that some of the structural features are similar to state-of-the-art deep learning architecture.

“The most challenging aspect of this work was understanding and interpreting what we saw. We were faced with a complex neural circuit with lots of structure. In collaboration with Professor Priebe and Professor Vogestein’s groups at Johns Hopkins University, we developed computational tools to predict the relevant behaviours from the structures. By comparing this biological system, we can potentially also inspire better artificial networks,” said Zlatic.

“This is an exciting and significant body of work by colleagues at the MRC Laboratory of Molecular Biology and others,” said Jo Latimer, Head of Neurosciences and Mental Health at the Medical Research Council.

She added: “Not only have they mapped every single neuron in the insect’s brain, but they’ve also worked out how each neuron is connected. This is a big step forward in addressing key questions about how the brain works, particularly how signals move through the neurons and synapses leading to behaviour, and this detailed understanding may lead to therapeutic interventions in the future.”

The next step is to delve deeper to understand, for example, the brain circuitry required for specific behavioural functions, such as learning and decision making, and to look at activity in the whole connectome while the insect is doing things.

Adapted from a press release by the Medical Research Council

Reference

Winding, M. et al: ‘The connectome of an insect brain.’ Science, 10 March 2023. DOI: 10.1126/science.add9330 

Researchers have built the first ever map showing every single neuron and how they’re wired together in the brain of the fruit fly larva.

Now we can start gaining a mechanistic understanding of how the brain works.Marta Zlatic Map of the fruit fly brain

The text in this work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. Images, including our videos, are Copyright ©University of Cambridge and licensors/contributors as identified.  All rights reserved. We make our image and video content available in a number of ways – as here, on our main website under its Terms and conditions, and on a range of channels including social media that permit your use and sharing of our content under their respective Terms.

Yes

This will help scientists to understand the basic principles by which signals travel through the brain at the neural level and lead to behaviour and learning.  

An organism's nervous system, including the brain, is made up of neurons that are connected to each other via synapses. Information in the form of chemicals passes from one neuron to another through these contact points.

The map of the 3016 neurons that make up the larva of the fruit fly Drosophila melanogaster’s brain, and the detailed circuitry of neural pathways within it, is known as a ‘connectome’.

This is the largest complete brain connectome ever to have been mapped. It is a huge advance on previous work to map very simple brain structures including the roundworm C. elegans, which only has several hundred neurons.

Imaging entire brains has until recently been extremely challenging. Now, technological advances allow scientists to image the entire brain of the fruit fly larvae relatively quickly using electron microscopy, and reconstruct the brain circuits from the resulting data.

The fruit fly larva has similar brain structures to the adult fruit fly and larger insects, and has a rich behavioural repertoire, including learning and action-selection.

“The way the brain circuit is structured influences the computations the brain can do. But, up until this point, we haven’t seen the structure of any brain except in very simple organisms,” said Professor Marta Zlatic at the University of Cambridge’s Department of Zoology and the Medical Research Council Laboratory of Molecular Biology (MRC LMB).

Zlatic led the research together with Professor Albert Cardona at the University of Cambridge’s Department of Physiology, Development and Neuroscience and the MRC LMB, and Dr Michael Winding at the University of Cambridge’s Department of Zoology. The study, which also involved collaborators from both the UK and the US, is published today in the journal Science.

She added: “Until now, the actual circuit patterns involved in most brain computations have been unknown. Now we can start gaining a mechanistic understanding of how the brain works.”

Current technology is not yet advanced enough to map the connectome of more complex animals such as large mammals. But because all brains involve networks of interconnected neurons, the researchers say that their new map will be a lasting reference for future studies of brain function in other animals.

“All brains of all species have to perform many complex behaviours: for example they all need to process sensory information, learn, choose food, and navigate their environment. In the same way that genes are conserved across the animal kingdom, I think that the basic circuit patterns that drive these fundamental behaviours will also be conserved,” said Zlatic.

To build a picture of the fruit fly larva connectome, the team used thousands of slices of the larva’s brain imaged with a high-resolution electron microscope, to reconstruct a map of the fly’s brain - and painstakingly annotated the connections between neurons. As well as mapping the 3016 neurons, they mapped an incredible 548,000 synapses.

The researchers also developed computational tools to identify likely pathways of information flow and different types of circuit patterns in the insect’s brain. They found that some of the structural features are similar to state-of-the-art deep learning architecture.

“The most challenging aspect of this work was understanding and interpreting what we saw. We were faced with a complex neural circuit with lots of structure. In collaboration with Professor Priebe and Professor Vogestein’s groups at Johns Hopkins University, we developed computational tools to predict the relevant behaviours from the structures. By comparing this biological system, we can potentially also inspire better artificial networks,” said Zlatic.

“This is an exciting and significant body of work by colleagues at the MRC Laboratory of Molecular Biology and others,” said Jo Latimer, Head of Neurosciences and Mental Health at the Medical Research Council.

She added: “Not only have they mapped every single neuron in the insect’s brain, but they’ve also worked out how each neuron is connected. This is a big step forward in addressing key questions about how the brain works, particularly how signals move through the neurons and synapses leading to behaviour, and this detailed understanding may lead to therapeutic interventions in the future.”

The next step is to delve deeper to understand, for example, the brain circuitry required for specific behavioural functions, such as learning and decision making, and to look at activity in the whole connectome while the insect is doing things.

Adapted from a press release by the Medical Research Council

Reference

Winding, M. et al: ‘The connectome of an insect brain.’ Science, 10 March 2023. DOI: 10.1126/science.add9330 

Researchers have built the first ever map showing every single neuron and how they’re wired together in the brain of the fruit fly larva.

Now we can start gaining a mechanistic understanding of how the brain works.Marta Zlatic Map of the fruit fly brain

The text in this work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. Images, including our videos, are Copyright ©University of Cambridge and licensors/contributors as identified.  All rights reserved. We make our image and video content available in a number of ways – as here, on our main website under its Terms and conditions, and on a range of channels including social media that permit your use and sharing of our content under their respective Terms.

Yes

For thousands of years, humanity and science have contemplated the origins of life in the Universe. While today’s scientists are well-equipped with innovative technologies, humanity has a long way to go before we fully understand the fundamental aspects of what life is and how it forms.

“We are living in an extraordinary moment in history,” said Professor Didier Queloz, who directs the Leverhulme Centre for Life in the Universe at Cambridge and ETH Zurich’s Centre for Origin and Prevalence of Life. While still a doctoral student, Queloz was the first to discover an exoplanet – a planet orbiting a star other than our Sun. The discovery led to him being awarded the 2019 Nobel Prize in Physics.

In the three decades since Queloz’s discovery, scientists have discovered more than 5,000 exoplanets. Trillions more are predicted to exist within our Milky Way galaxy alone. Each exoplanet discovery raises more questions about how and why life emerged on Earth and whether it exists elsewhere in the universe.

Technological advancements, such as the James Webb Space Telescope and interplanetary missions to Mars, give scientists access to huge volumes of new observations and data. Sifting through all this information to understand the emergence of life in the universe will take a big, multidisciplinary network.

In collaboration with chemist and fellow Nobel Laureate Jack Szostak and astronomer Dimitar Sasselov, Queloz announced the formation of such a network at the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) meeting in Washington, DC. The Origins Federation brings together researchers studying the origins of life at Cambridge, ETH Zurich, Harvard University, and The University of Chicago.

Together, Federation scientists will explore the chemical and physical processes of living organisms and environmental conditions hospitable to supporting life on other planets. “The Origins Federation builds upon a long-standing collegial relationship strengthened through a shared collaboration in a recently completed project with the Simons Foundation,” said Queloz.

These collaborations support the work of researchers like Dr Emily Mitchell from Cambridge's Department of Zoology. Mitchell is co-director of Cambridge’s Leverhulme Centre for Life in the Universe and an ecological time traveller. She uses field-based laser-scanning and statistical mathematical ecology on 580-million-year-old fossils of deep-sea organisms to determine the driving factors that influence the macro-evolutionary patterns of life on Earth.

Speaking at AAAS, Mitchell took participants back to four billion years ago when Earth’s early atmosphere - devoid of oxygen and steeped in methane – showed its first signs of microbial life. She spoke about how life survives in extreme environments and then evolves offering potential astrobiological insights into the origins of life elsewhere in the universe.

“As we begin to investigate other planets through the Mars missions, biosignatures could reveal whether or not the origin of life itself and its evolution on Earth is just a happy accident or part of the fundamental nature of the universe, with all its biological and ecological complexities,” said Mitchell.

The founding centres of the Origins Federation are The Origins of Life Initiative (Harvard University), Centre for Origin and Prevalence of Life (ETH Zurich), the Center for the Origins of Life (University of Chicago), and the Leverhulme Centre for Life in the Universe (University of Cambridge).

The Origins Federation will pursue scientific research topics of interest to its founding centres with a long-term perspective and common milestones. It will strive to establish a stable funding platform to create opportunities for creative and innovative ideas, and to enable young scientists to make a career in this new field. The Origins Federation is open to new members, both centres and individuals, and is committed to developing the mechanisms and structure to achieve that aim.

“The pioneering work of Professor Queloz has allowed astronomers and physicists to make advances that were unthinkable only a few years ago, both in the discovery of planets which could host life and the development of techniques to study them,” said Professor Andy Parker, head of Cambridge's Cavendish Laboratory. “But now we need to bring the full range of our scientific understanding to bear in order to understand what life really is and whether it exists on these newly discovered planets. The Cavendish Laboratory is proud to host the Leverhulme Centre for Life in the Universe and to partner with the Origins Federation to lead this quest.”

Scientists from the University of Cambridge, ETH Zurich, Harvard University, and the University of Chicago have founded the Origins Federation, which will advance our understanding of the emergence and early evolution of life, and its place in the cosmos.

ETH Zurich/NASAL-R: Emily Mitchell, Didier Queloz, Kate Adamal, Carl Zimmer

The text in this work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. Images, including our videos, are Copyright ©University of Cambridge and licensors/contributors as identified.  All rights reserved. We make our image and video content available in a number of ways – as here, on our main website under its Terms and conditions, and on a range of channels including social media that permit your use and sharing of our content under their respective Terms.

Yes

For thousands of years, humanity and science have contemplated the origins of life in the Universe. While today’s scientists are well-equipped with innovative technologies, humanity has a long way to go before we fully understand the fundamental aspects of what life is and how it forms.

“We are living in an extraordinary moment in history,” said Professor Didier Queloz, who directs the Leverhulme Centre for Life in the Universe at Cambridge and ETH Zurich’s Centre for Origin and Prevalence of Life. While still a doctoral student, Queloz was the first to discover an exoplanet – a planet orbiting a star other than our Sun. The discovery led to him being awarded the 2019 Nobel Prize in Physics.

In the three decades since Queloz’s discovery, scientists have discovered more than 5,000 exoplanets. Trillions more are predicted to exist within our Milky Way galaxy alone. Each exoplanet discovery raises more questions about how and why life emerged on Earth and whether it exists elsewhere in the universe.

Technological advancements, such as the James Webb Space Telescope and interplanetary missions to Mars, give scientists access to huge volumes of new observations and data. Sifting through all this information to understand the emergence of life in the universe will take a big, multidisciplinary network.

In collaboration with chemist and fellow Nobel Laureate Jack Szostak and astronomer Dimitar Sasselov, Queloz announced the formation of such a network at the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) meeting in Washington, DC. The Origins Federation brings together researchers studying the origins of life at Cambridge, ETH Zurich, Harvard University, and The University of Chicago.

Together, Federation scientists will explore the chemical and physical processes of living organisms and environmental conditions hospitable to supporting life on other planets. “The Origins Federation builds upon a long-standing collegial relationship strengthened through a shared collaboration in a recently completed project with the Simons Foundation,” said Queloz.

These collaborations support the work of researchers like Dr Emily Mitchell from Cambridge's Department of Zoology. Mitchell is co-director of Cambridge’s Leverhulme Centre for Life in the Universe and an ecological time traveller. She uses field-based laser-scanning and statistical mathematical ecology on 580-million-year-old fossils of deep-sea organisms to determine the driving factors that influence the macro-evolutionary patterns of life on Earth.

Speaking at AAAS, Mitchell took participants back to four billion years ago when Earth’s early atmosphere - devoid of oxygen and steeped in methane – showed its first signs of microbial life. She spoke about how life survives in extreme environments and then evolves offering potential astrobiological insights into the origins of life elsewhere in the universe.

“As we begin to investigate other planets through the Mars missions, biosignatures could reveal whether or not the origin of life itself and its evolution on Earth is just a happy accident or part of the fundamental nature of the universe, with all its biological and ecological complexities,” said Mitchell.

The founding centres of the Origins Federation are The Origins of Life Initiative (Harvard University), Centre for Origin and Prevalence of Life (ETH Zurich), the Center for the Origins of Life (University of Chicago), and the Leverhulme Centre for Life in the Universe (University of Cambridge).

The Origins Federation will pursue scientific research topics of interest to its founding centres with a long-term perspective and common milestones. It will strive to establish a stable funding platform to create opportunities for creative and innovative ideas, and to enable young scientists to make a career in this new field. The Origins Federation is open to new members, both centres and individuals, and is committed to developing the mechanisms and structure to achieve that aim.

“The pioneering work of Professor Queloz has allowed astronomers and physicists to make advances that were unthinkable only a few years ago, both in the discovery of planets which could host life and the development of techniques to study them,” said Professor Andy Parker, head of Cambridge's Cavendish Laboratory. “But now we need to bring the full range of our scientific understanding to bear in order to understand what life really is and whether it exists on these newly discovered planets. The Cavendish Laboratory is proud to host the Leverhulme Centre for Life in the Universe and to partner with the Origins Federation to lead this quest.”

Scientists from the University of Cambridge, ETH Zurich, Harvard University, and the University of Chicago have founded the Origins Federation, which will advance our understanding of the emergence and early evolution of life, and its place in the cosmos.

ETH Zurich/NASAL-R: Emily Mitchell, Didier Queloz, Kate Adamal, Carl Zimmer

The text in this work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. Images, including our videos, are Copyright ©University of Cambridge and licensors/contributors as identified.  All rights reserved. We make our image and video content available in a number of ways – as here, on our main website under its Terms and conditions, and on a range of channels including social media that permit your use and sharing of our content under their respective Terms.

Yes

Congratulations to Derek Smith and the team in the Centre for Pathogen Evolution who, on behalf of the University of Cambridge, have been given this award for their work on antigenic cartography, which is used to describe and predict the evolution of viruses such as influenza and SARS-CoV-2. The mission of the IEEE (the...

The pledge, made in 2020 by nine major UK game shooting and rural organisations, aims to protect the natural environment and ensure a safer supply of game meat for consumers. Lead is toxic even in very small concentrations, and discarded shot from hunting poisons and kills tens of thousands of the UK’s wild birds each year.

A Cambridge-led team of 17 volunteers bought whole pheasants from butchers, game dealers and supermarkets across the UK in 2022-23. They dissected the birds at home and recovered embedded shotgun pellets from 235 of the 356 pheasant carcasses.

The main metal present in each shotgun pellet was revealed through laboratory analysis - conducted at the Environmental Research Institute, University of the Highlands and Islands, UK. Lead was the main element in 94% of the recovered shot pellets; the remaining 6% were predominantly composed of steel or a metal called bismuth.

The results are published today in the Conservation Evidence Journal.

At the request of the Defra Secretary of State, the UK Health & Safety Executive assessed the risks to the environment and human health posed by lead in shots and bullets. Their report proposes that the use of lead ammunition be banned, and this is currently under review. While remaining committed to phasing out lead shot voluntarily, many shooting organisations do not support the proposed regulatory restrictions.

“If UK game hunters are going to phase out lead shot voluntarily, they’re not doing very well so far,” said Professor Rhys Green in the University of Cambridge’s Department of Zoology, first author of the study.

He added: “The small decrease in the proportion of birds shot with lead in the latest UK shooting season is nowhere near on track to achieve a complete transition to non-toxic ammunition in the next two years.”

This is the third consecutive year the team has conducted the analysis. Their latest study shows a small improvement on the 2021/22 and 2021/20 shooting seasons, when over 99% of the pheasants studied were shot using lead ammunition.

In separate initiatives, some suppliers of game meat for human consumption - including Waitrose & Partners - have voluntarily announced their intention to stop selling game killed using lead shot. An assurance scheme has also been launched to encourage suppliers and retailers to facilitate the transition.

The team did not find any pheasant on sale in Waitrose in 2022/23 despite repeated visits to 15 different stores. Waitrose staff reported that the company had not been sufficiently assured by any supplier in 2022/23 that all pheasants had been killed using non-lead ammunition.

“Waitrose is the only retailer we know of fully complying with the pledge not to supply pheasant killed using lead, but it’s only managing this by not selling any pheasant at all,” said Green.

Steel shotgun pellets are a practical alternative to lead, and the vast majority of shotguns can use them or other safe lead-free alternatives. Shooting magazines and UK shooting organisations have communicated positive messages for three years about the effectiveness and practicality of non-lead shotgun ammunition.

Shooting and rural organisations - including the British Association for Shooting and Conservation and the Game and Wildlife Conservation Trust - have consistently provided information and detailed guidance to encourage the transition from lead to non-lead ammunition since 2020.

“Denmark banned lead shotgun ammunition in 1996, and a successful transition was made to steel and bismuth. It’s safer for the environment and gives game shooting a better image,” said Green.

A previous study led by Green found that pheasants killed by lead shot contain many fragments of lead too small to detect by eye or touch, and too distant from the shot to be removed without throwing away a large proportion of otherwise useable meat. This means that eating pheasant killed using lead shot is likely to expose consumers to raised levels of lead in their diet, even if the meat is carefully prepared to remove whole shotgun pellets and the most damaged tissue.

Lead has been banned from use in paint and petrol for decades. It is toxic to humans when absorbed by the body and there is no known safe level of exposure. Lead accumulates in the body over time and can cause long-term harm, including increased risk of cardiovascular disease and kidney disease in adults. Lead is known to lower IQ in young children, and affect the neurological development of unborn babies.

Funding from the RSPB and Waitrose supported this work.

Reference

Green, R.E. et al: ‘Voluntary transition by hunters and game-meat suppliers from lead to non-lead ammunition: changes in practice after three years.’ Conservation Evidence Journal, February 2023. DOI 10.52201/CEJ19/SAFD8835

Three years into a five-year pledge to completely phase out lead shot in UK game hunting, a Cambridge study finds that 94% of pheasants on sale for human consumption were killed using lead.

If UK game hunters are going to phase out lead shot voluntarily, they’re not doing very well so farRhys GreenAndy Hay, RSPB imagesPheasant

The text in this work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. Images, including our videos, are Copyright ©University of Cambridge and licensors/contributors as identified.  All rights reserved. We make our image and video content available in a number of ways – as here, on our main website under its Terms and conditions, and on a range of channels including social media that permit your use and sharing of our content under their respective Terms.

YesLicence type: Attribution-Noncommerical

The pledge, made in 2020 by nine major UK game shooting and rural organisations, aims to protect the natural environment and ensure a safer supply of game meat for consumers. Lead is toxic even in very small concentrations, and discarded shot from hunting poisons and kills tens of thousands of the UK’s wild birds each year.

A Cambridge-led team of 17 volunteers bought whole pheasants from butchers, game dealers and supermarkets across the UK in 2022-23. They dissected the birds at home and recovered embedded shotgun pellets from 235 of the 356 pheasant carcasses.

The main metal present in each shotgun pellet was revealed through laboratory analysis - conducted at the Environmental Research Institute, University of the Highlands and Islands, UK. Lead was the main element in 94% of the recovered shot pellets; the remaining 6% were predominantly composed of steel or a metal called bismuth.

The results are published today in the Conservation Evidence Journal.

At the request of the Defra Secretary of State, the UK Health & Safety Executive assessed the risks to the environment and human health posed by lead in shots and bullets. Their report proposes that the use of lead ammunition be banned, and this is currently under review. While remaining committed to phasing out lead shot voluntarily, many shooting organisations do not support the proposed regulatory restrictions.

“If UK game hunters are going to phase out lead shot voluntarily, they’re not doing very well so far,” said Professor Rhys Green in the University of Cambridge’s Department of Zoology, first author of the study.

He added: “The small decrease in the proportion of birds shot with lead in the latest UK shooting season is nowhere near on track to achieve a complete transition to non-toxic ammunition in the next two years.”

This is the third consecutive year the team has conducted the analysis. Their latest study shows a small improvement on the 2021/22 and 2021/20 shooting seasons, when over 99% of the pheasants studied were shot using lead ammunition.

In separate initiatives, some suppliers of game meat for human consumption - including Waitrose & Partners - have voluntarily announced their intention to stop selling game killed using lead shot. An assurance scheme has also been launched to encourage suppliers and retailers to facilitate the transition.

The team did not find any pheasant on sale in Waitrose in 2022/23 despite repeated visits to 15 different stores. Waitrose staff reported that the company had not been sufficiently assured by any supplier in 2022/23 that all pheasants had been killed using non-lead ammunition.

“Waitrose is the only retailer we know of fully complying with the pledge not to supply pheasant killed using lead, but it’s only managing this by not selling any pheasant at all,” said Green.

Steel shotgun pellets are a practical alternative to lead, and the vast majority of shotguns can use them or other safe lead-free alternatives. Shooting magazines and UK shooting organisations have communicated positive messages for three years about the effectiveness and practicality of non-lead shotgun ammunition.

Shooting and rural organisations - including the British Association for Shooting and Conservation and the Game and Wildlife Conservation Trust - have consistently provided information and detailed guidance to encourage the transition from lead to non-lead ammunition since 2020.

“Denmark banned lead shotgun ammunition in 1996, and a successful transition was made to steel and bismuth. It’s safer for the environment and gives game shooting a better image,” said Green.

A previous study led by Green found that pheasants killed by lead shot contain many fragments of lead too small to detect by eye or touch, and too distant from the shot to be removed without throwing away a large proportion of otherwise useable meat. This means that eating pheasant killed using lead shot is likely to expose consumers to raised levels of lead in their diet, even if the meat is carefully prepared to remove whole shotgun pellets and the most damaged tissue.

Lead has been banned from use in paint and petrol for decades. It is toxic to humans when absorbed by the body and there is no known safe level of exposure. Lead accumulates in the body over time and can cause long-term harm, including increased risk of cardiovascular disease and kidney disease in adults. Lead is known to lower IQ in young children, and affect the neurological development of unborn babies.

Funding from the RSPB and Waitrose supported this work.

Reference

Green, R.E. et al: ‘Voluntary transition by hunters and game-meat suppliers from lead to non-lead ammunition: changes in practice after three years.’ Conservation Evidence Journal, February 2023. DOI 10.52201/CEJ19/SAFD8835

Three years into a five-year pledge to completely phase out lead shot in UK game hunting, a Cambridge study finds that 94% of pheasants on sale for human consumption were killed using lead.

If UK game hunters are going to phase out lead shot voluntarily, they’re not doing very well so farRhys GreenAndy Hay, RSPB imagesPheasant

The text in this work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. Images, including our videos, are Copyright ©University of Cambridge and licensors/contributors as identified.  All rights reserved. We make our image and video content available in a number of ways – as here, on our main website under its Terms and conditions, and on a range of channels including social media that permit your use and sharing of our content under their respective Terms.

YesLicence type: Attribution-Noncommerical

The meal of choice for the Caribbean cleaner fish, the sharknose goby, is a platter of parasites, dead tissue, scales and mucus picked off the bodies of other fishes. By removing these morsels, gobies are offering their ‘cleaning services’ to other marine life – a famous example of a mutually beneficial relationship between species.

But new research from the University of Cambridge and Cardiff University shows that when gobies inadvertently set up shop within the territories of aggressive damselfish, damselfish scare off the gobies’ ‘choosy client customers’.

The study, published today in Behavioral Ecology, is an example of a largely unexplored phenomenon: a mutually beneficial relationship in nature being disrupted by a third party. 

Sharknose gobies work solo or band together and set up a ‘cleaning station’: a fixed location in a particular nook of coral reef, where other marine life burdened by parasites go to take advantage of the gobies’ dietary needs.

“Gobies wait at cleaning stations for customers to visit, similar to shops. And with customers, come the parasites,” said Dr Katie Dunkley, a behavioural ecologist at the University of Cambridge’s Department of Zoology. “In return for providing a cleaning service the gobies receive a payment of food.”

Customers are varied and include parrotfish, surgeonfish and butterflyfish. These choosy client fish shop around, visiting different cleaning stations open for business. If interested, they will adopt a stationary pose that makes a clean more likely – typically a head or tail-stand position with all fins flared.

During a clean – which could last from a few seconds to several minutes – gobies make physical contact with the customer, removing parasites and other dead body tissue. This is known as ‘tactile stimulation’ and, as well as getting rid of parasites, it may act as a massage reducing the customer’s stress, says Dunkley. Previous research has established the importance of cleaners – their removal led to fewer numbers and less variety of fish species on reefs.

“Cleaning stations act as a marketplace, and if customers stop showing up, over time a cleaning station is going to go out of business,” said Dunkley.

Five researchers spent over 34 hours observing cleaning stations on a shallow fringing reef in Tobago over a period of six weeks. Equipped with snorkels and waterproof paper they recorded underwater interactions for 10-minute periods from 8am-5:15pm each day.

They found that client fish were less likely to go to cleaning stations that were more often patrolled by damselfish, who scared ‘intruders’ away. 

“I thought that damselfish might play a role as they visit cleaning stations too – although don’t often get cleaned – but to see just how influential they were was startling.

“Damselfish act like farmers as they weed out algae they don’t want, to encourage their preferred algae to grow. Damselfish are protective over their algal territories, and these antisocial fish spend a lot of time patrolling their territories, scaring away intruders through biting, attacking, chasing or threatening displays.”

Damselfish’s territories cover up to 70% of some reefs. On a healthy coral reef, a balance is maintained between algae and coral. But as reefs deteriorate and overfishing intensifies, algae thrive. As reefs deteriorate damselfish may become more common and/or aggressive – leading to fewer species receiving the goby cleaning treatment needed to keep them healthy, says Dunkley. This could ultimately contribute to the breakdown of delicate ecosystems supported by reefs.

“In future we’d like to tease out the motives of damselfish. Are they driven by wanting to protect their algae farms or monopolise cleaning stations?” said Dunkley, a Charles Darwin and Galapagos Islands Fund Junior Research Fellow at Christ’s College, Cambridge.

“Just as humans are connected through family, friends and colleagues, all fish are connected to each other. It’s important that we don’t just look at relationships in isolated bubbles. We need to step back and see how all fish are connected so that we can protect ecosystems like coral reefs.”

The study was funded by a Natural Environment Research Council GW4+ studentship and Christ’s College University of Cambridge Galapagos Islands Fund (both awarded to first author, Katie Dunkley). Last author, James Herbert-Read, was supported by the Whitten Lectureship in Marine Biology, and a Swedish Research Council Grant (2018–04076).

Dunkley et al, The presence of territorial damselfish predicts choosy client species richness at cleaning stations, Behavioral Ecology, DOI: doi.org/10.1093/beheco/arac122

Damselfish have been discovered to disrupt ‘cleaning services’ vital to the health of reefs. And climate change may mean this is only likely to get worse.

"We need to step back and see how all fish are connected so that we can protect ecosystems like coral reefs."Dr Katie Dunkley

The text in this work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. Images, including our videos, are Copyright ©University of Cambridge and licensors/contributors as identified.  All rights reserved. We make our image and video content available in a number of ways – as here, on our main website under its Terms and conditions, and on a range of channels including social media that permit your use and sharing of our content under their respective Terms.

Yes

The meal of choice for the Caribbean cleaner fish, the sharknose goby, is a platter of parasites, dead tissue, scales and mucus picked off the bodies of other fishes. By removing these morsels, gobies are offering their ‘cleaning services’ to other marine life – a famous example of a mutually beneficial relationship between species.

But new research from the University of Cambridge and Cardiff University shows that when gobies inadvertently set up shop within the territories of aggressive damselfish, damselfish scare off the gobies’ ‘choosy client customers’.

The study, published today in Behavioral Ecology, is an example of a largely unexplored phenomenon: a mutually beneficial relationship in nature being disrupted by a third party. 

Sharknose gobies work solo or band together and set up a ‘cleaning station’: a fixed location in a particular nook of coral reef, where other marine life burdened by parasites go to take advantage of the gobies’ dietary needs.

“Gobies wait at cleaning stations for customers to visit, similar to shops. And with customers, come the parasites,” said Dr Katie Dunkley, a behavioural ecologist at the University of Cambridge’s Department of Zoology. “In return for providing a cleaning service the gobies receive a payment of food.”

Customers are varied and include parrotfish, surgeonfish and butterflyfish. These choosy client fish shop around, visiting different cleaning stations open for business. If interested, they will adopt a stationary pose that makes a clean more likely – typically a head or tail-stand position with all fins flared.

During a clean – which could last from a few seconds to several minutes – gobies make physical contact with the customer, removing parasites and other dead body tissue. This is known as ‘tactile stimulation’ and, as well as getting rid of parasites, it may act as a massage reducing the customer’s stress, says Dunkley. Previous research has established the importance of cleaners – their removal led to fewer numbers and less variety of fish species on reefs.

“Cleaning stations act as a marketplace, and if customers stop showing up, over time a cleaning station is going to go out of business,” said Dunkley.

Five researchers spent over 34 hours observing cleaning stations on a shallow fringing reef in Tobago over a period of six weeks. Equipped with snorkels and waterproof paper they recorded underwater interactions for 10-minute periods from 8am-5:15pm each day.

They found that client fish were less likely to go to cleaning stations that were more often patrolled by damselfish, who scared ‘intruders’ away. 

“I thought that damselfish might play a role as they visit cleaning stations too – although don’t often get cleaned – but to see just how influential they were was startling.

“Damselfish act like farmers as they weed out algae they don’t want, to encourage their preferred algae to grow. Damselfish are protective over their algal territories, and these antisocial fish spend a lot of time patrolling their territories, scaring away intruders through biting, attacking, chasing or threatening displays.”

Damselfish’s territories cover up to 70% of some reefs. On a healthy coral reef, a balance is maintained between algae and coral. But as reefs deteriorate and overfishing intensifies, algae thrive. As reefs deteriorate damselfish may become more common and/or aggressive – leading to fewer species receiving the goby cleaning treatment needed to keep them healthy, says Dunkley. This could ultimately contribute to the breakdown of delicate ecosystems supported by reefs.

“In future we’d like to tease out the motives of damselfish. Are they driven by wanting to protect their algae farms or monopolise cleaning stations?” said Dunkley, a Charles Darwin and Galapagos Islands Fund Junior Research Fellow at Christ’s College, Cambridge.

“Just as humans are connected through family, friends and colleagues, all fish are connected to each other. It’s important that we don’t just look at relationships in isolated bubbles. We need to step back and see how all fish are connected so that we can protect ecosystems like coral reefs.”

The study was funded by a Natural Environment Research Council GW4+ studentship and Christ’s College University of Cambridge Galapagos Islands Fund (both awarded to first author, Katie Dunkley). Last author, James Herbert-Read, was supported by the Whitten Lectureship in Marine Biology, and a Swedish Research Council Grant (2018–04076).

Dunkley et al, The presence of territorial damselfish predicts choosy client species richness at cleaning stations, Behavioral Ecology, DOI: doi.org/10.1093/beheco/arac122

Damselfish have been discovered to disrupt ‘cleaning services’ vital to the health of reefs. And climate change may mean this is only likely to get worse.

"We need to step back and see how all fish are connected so that we can protect ecosystems like coral reefs."Dr Katie Dunkley

The text in this work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. Images, including our videos, are Copyright ©University of Cambridge and licensors/contributors as identified.  All rights reserved. We make our image and video content available in a number of ways – as here, on our main website under its Terms and conditions, and on a range of channels including social media that permit your use and sharing of our content under their respective Terms.

Yes

The evolution of reproductive isolation: insights from swordtail fish

Abstract: Hybridization, or the exchange of genes between different species, is much more common than previously recognized. In the past decade, the genome sequencing revolution has allowed us to peer into the evolutionary histories of myriad species. This has led to the realization that many if not most plant and animal species have hybridized with their close relatives. Even the genome of our own species has been shaped by past hybridization. My research program seeks to illuminate the genetic and evolutionary consequences of hybridization. We study the mechanisms through which negative genetic interactions are eliminated after hybridization and the situations under which hybridization is beneficial, using swordtail fish as a model system.

• Speaker: Molly Schumer, Stanford
• Tuesday 21 February 2023, 13:00-14:00
• Venue: online via Zoom - contact organiser for details.
• Series: Behaviour, Ecology & Evolution Seminar Series; organiser: Dr Emily Mitchell.

Add to your calendar or Include in your list

To regenerate or not to regenerate? Recovering shape and function in damaged jellyfish

How randomly injured animals can appropriately re-establish positional information and control the deployment of repair programs are key questions of regenerative biology. The small hydrozoan medusae Clytia hemisphaerica, which are frequently damaged in the plankton, display powerful regenerative capacities, being able to regain a circular shape in less than 12 hours and a new functional mouth in 4 days. This efficient recovery depends on an interplay between mechanical forces, cell migration and proliferation, which we are just starting to unravel. In particular, we showed that the umbrella remodeling causes the radial muscle fibers in the subumbrellar layer to converge into ‘hubs’, associated to activation of Wnt signaling, and which function as positional landmarks. The different observed configurations of these muscle fibers correlate with a specific pattern of Wnt signaling activation, and – most remarkably – with the fate of the wound, notably whether a mouth regenerative program will be activated. In a second phase, mouth morphogenesis is fueled by both local cell proliferation and long-range cell recruitment and is further modulated by its connections with the gastrovascular canal system. Clytia medusae offer a novel experimental paradigm for addressing patterning formation and morphogenesis in tractable adult bodies, dissecting the interplay between chemical and mechanical cues in pattern formation. Finally, the diversity of repair strategies observed across cnidarians species provides a key opportunity to start unraveling the evolution of regenerative capacities.

• Speaker: Dr Chiara Sinigaglia (Observatoire Océanologique de Banyuls-sur-Mer)
• Wednesday 08 March 2023, 13:00-14:00
• Venue: Part II Lecture Theatre, Department of Zoology.
• Series: Evolution and Development Seminar Series; organiser: Christine Hirschberger.

Add to your calendar or Include in your list