Will Darwall, Head of IUCN’s Freshwater Biodiversity Unit, has used the International Day for Biodiversity to call for the formation of a single group of freshwater scientists and conservationists to give voice to the myriad of life under and on the surfaces of our lakes, rivers and wetlands.
Speaking with Paul Jepson from the University of Oxford, Will highlighted the need to work together and form a single advocacy group, pointing out that the community of freshwater scientists is quite small and fragmented worldwide relative to other groups working on more charismatic species. Can we bring together all these disparate groups working on freshwater biodiversity and ecosystems and form a much stronger, single ‘expert network’?
With World Biodiversity Day just one sleep away, Will Darwall, Head of the IUCN Freshwater Biodiversity Unit, sat down with Paul Jepson from the University of Oxford to discuss some of the big challenges facing freshwater biodiversity.
The theme of the International Day of Biodiversity 2013 is ‘Water & Biodiversity’, highlighting the crucial importance of both. However, freshwater biodiversity is currently facing some big challenges. 50% of the world’s wetlands have been lost last century, freshwater species most at risk from extinction, and habitat destruction is making the problem worse, yet the problem often literally remains out of sight and out of mind.
Listen to Will Darwall explore some of the key issues and explain why it is important to be concerned about freshwater biodiversity.
Tune in tomorrow for part 2 of the interview, where Will Darwall discusses a potential solution to address freshwater biodiversity’s lack of visibility.
Meet the BioFresh team: Will Darwall
We continue our ‘meet the team’ series, a behind the scenes look into the work of BioFresh, with an interview with Will Darwall, Head of the IUCN Freshwater Biodiversity Unit.
Will has over 20 years experience working on and leading collaborative research projects on the ecology and conservation of aquatic ecosystems in developing countries. We will also be posting a video discussion with Will this week, who outlines some of the key challenges for freshwater biodiversity, to promote the International Day of Biodiversity’s theme ‘Water and Biodiversity’.
Will Darwall (front) on a biodiversity survey on the Mekong – a river where the fish are only really seen by fishermen as the waters are so turbid.
1 What is the focus of your work for BioFresh, and why?
The world’s inland waters are probably the most threatened of our ecosystems, with the best current estimates suggesting around 50% have already been lost over the last 100 years. Loss of habitat clearly also leads to a loss of species and indications from the IUCN Red List put freshwater species as some of the most threatened of all. Given this situation our focus in BioFresh is to improve and make freely available the information needed to guide policy decisions and on-the-ground conservation action to help halt the loss of freshwater biodiversity through effective conservation and development planning. One of the most powerful tools we are developing through the project is the identification and mapping of a network of Key Biodiversity Areas for freshwater species. Key Biodiversity Areas basically represent those areas we need to protect if we are to prevent the loss of species.
2 How is your work relevant to policy makers, conservationists and/or the general public?
A number of important Conventions, such as the Convention on Biological Diversity (under Target 11), and policies on environmental safeguards, such as Performance Standard 6 of the International Finance Corporation (guidance to the World Bank Group), specifically state the need to identify and protect important sites of biodiversity. Our work to map these important sites through BioFresh will directly provide the information needed for countries and developers to identify these sites. We are also able to determine how well the current protected area networks, such as Natura2000, incorporate freshwater species and we can identify areas where the coverage is poor and recommend additional or modified protected areas to better represent freshwater species.
Heron eying an alligator in the Forida Everglades
3 Why is the BioFresh project important?
BioFresh is unique in its ability to bring together the widely dispersed information needed to inform policy for the conservation of freshwater biodiversity. The BioFresh portal will allow rapid access to much of the latest information on the status of freshwater biodiversity, the threats to that biodiversity, and predictions for the impacts of those threats on species, especially in relation to movements of species to new areas.
4 Tell us about a memorable experience in your career.
One of my more memorable moments was my first dive in Lake Tanganyika as part of a project where we were to train local scientists in underwater survey methodologies. Diving in the lake was like diving on an inland coral reef with a tremendous diversity of fish species, freshwater jellyfishes, crabs, shells and even the endemic water cobra.
Ophthalmotilapia ventralis, a type of freshwater fish only found in Lake Tanganyika, Tanzania, and member of the cichlid family.
5 What inspired you to become a scientist?
I was probably influenced quite heavily by my uncle who is an entomologist and excellent naturalist. He used to take me out “bug hunting” all the time and I became quite an expert on many species at an early age (since forgotten now I fear!). As part of this experience when looking after some of his “pets” I remember watching Atlas moths emerging in my bedroom and hanging from the curtain, and huge stick insects shooting their eggs off the walls! Later on my interest in freshwaters was possibly initiated when my sister won a goldfish at the fair and we set up our first fish tank.
6 What are your plans and ambitions for your future scientific work?
To inspire more people to be interested in the wonders of freshwater biodiversity – I see communication of the value of freshwater biodiversity as a major challenge. Most people will never see the amazing species we know are living in our lakes and rivers as they remain hidden in often murky waters and their loss often goes unnoticed.
Water and biodiversity is the theme for the International Day for Biological Diversity and provides an opportunity to raise awareness about the crucial role that water plays in sustaining life on Earth, as well the highlighting the abundance of life found within freshwaters.
It’s a big year for water! The theme of this year’s international day of biodiversity (or world biodiversity day) is ‘water and biodiversity’, which has been chosen to coincide with the designation of 2013 as the International Year of Water Co-operation. The date of the international day of biodiversity (22 May) marks the adoption of the Convention on Biological Diversity. 2005-2015 is also the UN decade of ‘Water for Life’. See here for some key messages.
World biodiversity day provides a key opportunity for the freshwater biodiversity community to raise the profile of freshwater biodiversity and highlight both the importance of it and the threats it faces. Please get involved and help us raise awareness of the vital role that freshwater biodiversity plays in our lives and the world around us.
We encourage you to take to twitter and other social media to create some buzz around the issue. You can follow us on twitter: @biofreshproject. Below are some example tweets that you can tweet yourself or use for inspiration. We would also like to encourage the freshwater scientists among us to tweet key findings from any relevant papers you’ve written. And don’t forget to hashtag your tweets (e.g. #water #biodiversity #BiodiversityDay)
Example tweets:
Did you know: #freshwater covers just 1% of Earth’s surface, but harbours 10% of all animals! #water #biodiversity #BiodiversityDay
#Water is not only a vital resource, but a medium for life – 35% of all invertebrates found in #freshwater! #biodiversity #BiodiversityDay
Should awe and wonder be taken seriously as an #ecosystem service? #water #biodiversity #BiodiversityDay
Millions of people around the world depend on freshwater ecosystems & the #biodiversity in them for their livelihood #water #BiodiversityDay
A shared knowledge base on #biodiversity needed for effective policy & conservation of freshwater ecosystems #water #BiodiversityDay
#Water is life: it underpins human well-being, as well ecosystem health & #biodiversity #BiodiversityDay
Freshwater #ecosystems & #biodiversity play crucial role for #water #security by regulating availability & quality of water #BiodiversityDay
Freshwater #ecosystems are natural #water infrastructure that can serve same purpose as dams or treatment plants #BiodiversityDay
Without #ecosystems, the #water cycle, & dependent carbon & nutrient cycles, would be significantly altered #biodiversity #BiodiversityDay
Conserving #wetlands can help regulate #water but can also support significant fisheries #biodiversity #BiodiversityDay
… or why not tweet one of John Barlow’s beautiful Haiku’s from our art-science animation Water Lives
waterush
the slow song
of a dipper
#Haiku by John Barlow ‘ Water Lives” http://vimeo.com/36863720 International #Water #BiodiversityDay
one cell
anchored in time
winter stillness
#Haiku by John Barlow ‘ Water Lives” http://vimeo.com/36863720 International #Water #BiodiversityDay
ripple light
catkins colour
the leafless alders
#Haiku by John Barlow ‘ Water Lives” http://vimeo.com/36863720 International #Water #BiodiversityDay
hazy day moon
all of the star shapes
awakened in the lake
#Haiku by John Barlow ‘ Water Lives” http://vimeo.com/36863720 International #Water #BiodiversityDay
between glides
the water striders
pockmarking sky
#Haiku by John Barlow ‘ Water Lives” http://vimeo.com/36863720 International #Water #BiodiversityDay
past a ghost of a water flea the fisherman’s cast
#Haiku by John Barlow ‘ Water Lives” http://vimeo.com/36863720 International #Water #BiodiversityDay
aswirl
in the water column
rafts of diatoms
#Haiku by John Barlow ‘ Water Lives” http://vimeo.com/36863720 International #Water #BiodiversityDay
back and forth a dragonfly hawks the fading light
#Haiku by John Barlow ‘ Water Lives” http://vimeo.com/36863720 International #Water #BiodiversityDay
leaf-drift
the snail’s tentacles
at full stretch
#Haiku by John Barlow ‘ Water Lives” http://vimeo.com/36863720 International #Water #BiodiversityDay
late autumn
from every brown stem
the stalks of diatoms
#Haiku by John Barlow ‘ Water Lives” http://vimeo.com/36863720 International #Water #BiodiversityDay
early dusk
one fish in a shoal of fish
ripples the surface
#Haiku by John Barlow ‘ Water Lives” http://vimeo.com/36863720 International #Water #BiodiversityDay
into the stillness
of the winter depths
all the spent lives
#Haiku by John Barlow ‘ Water Lives” http://vimeo.com/36863720 International #Water #BiodiversityDay
adding their stories
to centuries of stories
the silicate tests
#Haiku by John Barlow ‘ Water Lives” http://vimeo.com/36863720 International #Water #BiodiversityDay
Meet the team: Nicolas Bailly
We continue our ‘meet the team’ series this week with an interview with Nicolas Bailly from BioFresh partner organisation, WorldFish Center. Nicolas is an ichthyologist (that’s someone who studies fish for those of you not versed in the world of fish). He is the project manager of FishBase and scientific advisor to SeaLifeBase.
1 What is the focus of your work for BioFresh, and why?
My work in BioFresh is to help to bring more data on freshwater biodiversity available for free on the web. It is at the same time:
- a scientific work to think about data, information and knowledge representations in computers based on the most recent advances on the subject;
- a technical work of data processing;
- and also a networking effort to convince colleagues and institutions outside BioFresh to publish their data in the BioFresh Portal.
2 How is your work relevant to policy makers, conservationists and/or the general public?
Political decision should be based on sound facts and data. The role of the scientist is to present alternatives based on these data to decisionmakers and the rest of the society. In a way, with respect to policy making, scientists are scenarists: they propose various scenarios deduced from various hypotheses on environmental conditions and human society behaviour. It remains the responsibility of the society through its decision- and policy-makers to choose one of these scenarios. I work at the very beginning of this chain, providing sound data for other colleagues to build the scenarios.
3 Why is the BioFresh project important?
Arapaima sp. from Guyana. Image: D.J. Stewart.
Other domains have organized themselves, like within marine environment research community, to advocate for the sustainability of the related biodiversity. There is no such recognition that freshwaters host an important part of the overall biodiversity. It may not be as colourful as coral reefs, not as iconic as pandas or whales, but it is as much as fascinating. And we have our are iconic species too: sturgeons, arapaima, beaver, otter, freshwater dolphins, crocodiles; and they can be colourful! Killifish, cichlids, discus… BioFresh must make aquarium lovers realize that freshwater biodiversity goes beyond a glass tank. Just like zoos have shifted their main concerns from demonstration to conservation.
Killifish. Photo: Hristo Hristov.
4 Tell us about a memorable experience in your career.
During a field trip along the Bia river, which from spring to mouth flows from Ghana downwards to Ivory Coast, we had a collecting station along a river in a village in Ghana and were about to set up traps and nets to catch fishes. But we were stopped by local officers because it was a taboo period for the Goddess of the river. We met with the village chief the day after to request him to waive the taboo period for one day and to give us permission to go fishing there. It is customary for two chiefs to speak indirectly through their assistants/interpreters before an agreement is finally sealed by a glass of strong alcohol. Our expedition chief was head of the Ghanaian Hydrological Institute and had conducted field research in that village some years ago. He found the taboo explanation odd and suspected that it was more about the village being worried that we were illegal gold miners (which is often the case in that area).
Surprisingly, the chief of the village said to our expedition chief, through their interpreters: “I remember you. You came here three years ago. You took fishes, crabs, snakes. You plunged strange machines in the river. You had strange nets for collecting jelly stuff. But you never came back to show us and explain what you found. Why should we allow you to do it again?”. The story ended well and we got the permission; and left without being too drunk! And the moral of this story is that scientists must make efforts to report their findings in an understandable way to the whole society.
5 What inspired you to become a scientist?
Since I was 10 years old I wanted to know more about and study fishes. This was thanks to my father and my grandfathers who brought me fishing with them since I was 5 years old, waking up at 5 o’clock in the morning in the dark and cold sometimes. Hours spent along river banks waiting for a catch leaves you with a lot of time to think and wonder how many species there are, why they are there, what they are doing, what do they feed on, etc., the later point being related to “Why do they not take my bait?” Knowing and discovering all about species leads you to science because it is the only activity that does it in a structured way, which corresponded to what I wanted to have: a structured archive of knowledge.
I discovered later that science is much more than that. I cannot remember when I first encountered the words taxonomy or systematics, but I do know where I read for the first time the barbaric word ichthyologist: in a book entitled “Journey of the Oceanauts” by Louis Wolfe (1970), of which I read an abridged version translated in French (in the collection for teenagers, “La Bibotheque verte”, Hachette publ.). It is the story of three scientists crossing the Atlantic Ocean by foot with the help of a breathing/feeding apparatus implemented near the throat. One of them is an ichthyologist, knowing everything about every fish they encountered: it is what I wanted to do! And every beginning of the school year I had to explain what ichthyology meant to my teachers who would always ask ‘what do you want to do when you grow up?’
6 What are your plans and ambitions for your future scientific work?
I have developed the concept of ISBearG framework, where scientific data and information databases are progressively translated into information and knowledge websites that can be understood by the public at large and have impact on awareness about biodiversity vulnerability. ISBearG stands for Information Systems in Biodiversity: encodinG, analyzinG, reportinG. The iceberg image refers to the fact that only a very tiny portion of data, information and knowledge is usable by the whole society. But in order to make it visible and useful it must be sustained by all the invisible, tedious and scientific ant-work underwater. I want to see that iceberg implemented globally for all biodiversity, from viruses to whales. The BioFresh portal is an illustration, even if incomplete, of this concept.
From a more personal point of view, I dream to make the great unification between cladistics and phenetics in taxonomy, but this is another story far from BioFresh concerns so I will not explain here!
At the close of the annual BioFresh meeting a little over a week ago, Paul Jepson from the University of Oxford sat down with Klement Tockner, leader of the BioFresh porject and director of the Leibniz-Institute of Freshwater Ecology and Inland Fisheries (IGB) to discuss the BioFresh’s past achievements and the future of project.
Meet the BioFresh team: Szabolcs Lengyel
After our annual meeting last week, we return to our series of ‘behind the scenes’ looks into the work of BioFresh scientists this week with an interview with Dr. Szabolcs Lengyel, co-leader of the Conservation Ecology Research Group at the Department of Ecology at University of Debrecen in Hungary.
Szabolcs Lengyel. Photo: Gábor Ruff (http://www.gaborruff.com)
1 What is the focus of your work for BioFresh, and why?
I focus on benthic invertebrates, mainly mayflies such as the spectacular Long-tailed Mayfly (Palingenia longicauda), and on water-birds and true bugs of sodic alkali lakes, a habitat typically found on sea coasts but which also occurs in a unique biogeographic setting in the landlocked country of Hungary. We apply approaches and methods in systematic conservation planning to assist in the identification of hotspots and optimal conservation networks for freshwater biodiversity. We use sophisticated spatial analyses to quantify patterns in and prioritize areas for the conservation of freshwater biodiversity and ecosystem services in Europe. We also carry out smaller studies on rivers and alkali lakes to understand patterns in freshwater biodiversity at smaller scales that can be used to validate the larger-scale approach.
2 How is your work relevant to policy makers, conservationists and/or the general public?
Several recent studies pointed out that freshwater biodiversity is declining faster than either terrestrial or marine diversity. Knowledge of key areas for freshwater biodiversity allows us to improve conservation efforts such as designating protected areas and habitat management or restoration to areas that are critical for the maintenance of this quickly declining component of global biodiversity. Such information is crucial for policy makers and the general public to come up with ideas and solutions to allocate conservation efforts where they are needed the most or to identify areas where development and conservation may present conflicting interests.
Mayflies swarming
3 Why is the BioFresh project important?
The databases and joint knowledge integrated in the BioFresh project on freshwater biodiversity and ecosystem services offer a unique opportunity to ask questions that could not be addressed previously. For me, one of the most important of such questions is what would be an optimal designation of protected area networks based solely on freshwater biodiversity (considering as many species groups as possible: fishes, mollusks, odonates, aquatic plants, amphibians etc.). Such an optimal network could then be compared against currently existing protected areas that were predominantly selected to conserve terrestrial biodiversity. A knowledge of gaps and overlaps based on this comparison could then provide essential information for policy makers and the general public on where further conservation action is necessary.
4 Tell us about a memorable experience in your career.
I have been lucky to have several of such experiences. A recent one is from a comparison of genetic diversity of a large and a small existing and an extinct population of Long-tailed Mayfly. The results showed that the small Rába river population in western Hungary is the last remnant of the once widespread but now extinct northwestern European populations and that the large population of the Tisza river in eastern Hungary still harbours unexpectedly high genetic diversity, which may be explained by the existence of refugial areas for this species here during the ice ages.
Long-tailed mayflies
5 What inspired you to become a scientist?
When I was 11 years old, my uncle Csaba Aradi, a renowned ornithologist in Hungary, showed me White-tailed Eagles (Haliaetus albicilla) performing their spectacular pre-mating display flight above the endless plains of Hortobágy National Park in eastern Hungary. Ever since I have wanted to become a biologist doing research to save these and other mighty species from extinction.
6 What are your plans and ambitions for your future scientific work?
We have recently carried out the currently largest active restoration of grasslands on former crop-lands in Europe and our team continues to monitor the changes in plant and animal communities after the various restoration and management actions. I would like to extend this and other previous knowledge to larger spatial scales and to freshwater biodiversity to optimally allocate and improve conservation strategies and actions to meet the objectives of policy instruments adopted by the international community and eventually to do some good for declining biodiversity.
An alkali lake in Hungary
