As the director of the Wildlife Conservation Society’s Molecular Diagnostics Laboratory, Tracie Simon develops cutting-edge techniques for the detection of pathogens that infect wild animals. She is also pushing the boundaries of conservation biology, employing eDNA (environmental DNA) collection and analysis to search for endangered species and assess biodiversity in some of the most remote ecosystems on Earth. In 2019, her team’s work on Mount Everest revealed surprising results about the wide diversity of species, which range across the tree of life, that call this hostile, high-elevation mountain environment home.
The Wildlife Conservation Society runs four zoos and the aquarium in New York City and supports conservation and research projects in more than 60 countries around the world.
Read the full article at Quanta Magazine: https://www.quantamagazine.org/she-tracks-the-dna-of-elusive-species-on-everest-and-in-the-andes-20230417/
00:00 Why protecting biodiversity important and the role of science
00:20 The Wildlife Conservation Society's Molecular Lab
00:50 How Dr. Tracie Simon ending up studying amphibians in the high Andes
01:39 How climate change is impacting high mountain environments
02:49 Researching environmental DNA (eDNA) in wild environments
03:27 Biodiversity eDNA analysis of life on Mt. Everest
04:16 Surprising results from the survey of the tree of life on Everest
05:45 Pushing boundaries of eDNA analysis to save the Yangtze Giant Softshell Turtle
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