Conservation genetics of forest trees in the era of rapid environmental changes: from descriptions to applications

I organize a small workshop, which is entitled as above, on April in Tsukuba, during the 121th annual meeting of Japanese Forest Society. Here is rough draft of my idea for the workshop.

Conservation genetics is one of the study area within conservation biology, which aimed to minimize the exiting risk of species due to genetic consequences. In addition, it could also be defined as resource management science, which aimed to ensure sustainable use of biological resources using genetics as tools and guidelines in terms of rapid environmental changes.

In early 1990s, conservation genetic was incorporated into forest science. In 1992, F. Thomas Ledig published a paper which discussed human impact of genetic diversity in forest ecosystems. As far as I know, "genetic diversity" itself was central issue during the early age of conservation genetics, and the factor affecting to genetic diversity such as inbreeding, fragmentation or range contraction was also discussed. In fact, many of study was addressed to description of genetic diversity and mating system of small populations at that time.

However, implications from those studies was limited for conservation practices. While genetic diversity of small population was well discussed, the role of genetics in conservation biology was still anecdotal. Questions came up, "How much genetic diversity should we keep?", "How do we incorporate the genetics in management practices", and "What is genetic diversity?".

Genetic diversity is metrics or indicator of population viability. Processes which affect to (neutral) genetic diversity should be similar to processes which affect to species diversity, and thus it should reflect the impact of previous and current perturbation to population, in terms of fragmentation and range contraction. In addition, inbreeding may result in reduction of population viability because of deleterious genes.

Thanks to advances in statistical modelling technique and genetics analysis, recent studies have addressed to quantitative assessment of process which affected genetic diversity, and thus to population viability. Next challenge in area is providing a framework for conservation planner to minimize the impact to genetic diversity and population viability, such as genetic population viability analysis under multiple scenarios.

Another issue in conservation genetics is climate change. Earth's climate is changing as rapidly as which tree species has never been experienced and considerable attention has focused on the fate of forest and forestry. Species often adapted to local environment, and they may be able to adapt to environmental changes, which enabled by genetic diversity within population. Thus, researchers have focus on mechanism of local adaptation since last couple of years.

Classically, evidence of local adaptation was well tested by provenance test or common garden experiment in forestry. Most of results from those studies supported the trees have adapted to along with latitudinal and altitudinal gradient, and it was reflected to seed transfer guidelines for plantations.

In terms of climate change, researchers are discussing to change seed transfer guideline to enable track species to optimum climate niches, which is so-called "assisted migration" or "managed relocation". Forestry department of BC Canada have already started the trial of assisted migration in major species in forestry (see Nature's article for detail). In fact, there are still strong resistance to assisted migration among researchers. But starting trial from now may be necessary to prepare for taking action in future. There is still a lot of uncertainty in this topic.

Rapid evolution of species to adapt new environment should also be incorporated to conservation genetic in terms of climate change. Using a theory of quantitative genetics, Russell Lande proposed a maximum limit of environmental change which species could adapt to. Also empirical evidence of rapid evolution along with environmental change was found in higher animals, for example three-pined stickleback and Darwin's finch. But, theoretical and empirical knowledge in forest trees is scare.

Furthermore, recent advances in genomics have enabled us to investigate the genes which responsible for local adaptation. Currently, the result is restricted in few adaptive traits in few major species in north America and Europe. To my knowledge, however, some big genomics projects are still intensively addressing to this issue. I hope the result from those genemics project become applicable to conservation genetics in near future.

Finally, I would like to emphasize the necessity to incorporate resource inventory, economics and policy making into conservation genetics. As the focus of conservation genetics become broader to regional, national or international scale, conservation cannot be restricted to natural science, rather effective management of genetic resources and policy making which considering the scientific knowledge are required to archive objectives.

In this workshop, I would like to invite several speakers to discuss those issues.

Conventional statistics and hierarchical Bayes: a discussion on the difference in philosophy

I will join and give a talk about my recent work on conservation genetics of spruce at Institute of Statistical Mathematics (ISM) on this Thursday. I have been preparing for the seminar for this weekend, and it will take for another couple of days.

To be honest, giving a talk at ISM is the kind of work that I'd like to avoid. Unlike to a meeting of ecologists, audiences come from various scientific backgrounds, although the title of the seminar is like "statistics and field ecology". How could I appeal to ecologists and mathematicians simultaneously?

For this time, I have one idea to establish my talk. It is about differences in philosophy between conventional statistical tests and statistical models, especially hierarchical Bayes (HB) models.

Thanks to good textbooks for ecologists and softwares such as WinBUGS, HB have widely spread among ecologists for last couple of years. On the other hand, as long as I know, the most of researchers who intended to use HB did not notice to differences in philosophy between conventional statistics and HB. They thought HB was just an improvement of conventional statistics. Mathematically, it may be true for some cases. But I'd like to emphasize the difference in the way to analyze the data.

Conventional statistics such as t-test summarlize the data to simple form, like "there was significant difference between two values". Then, researchers discuss about processes of interest from those significant differences among values. In this case, data can be analyzed without any prior hypothesis.

On the contrary, statistical models such as HB fits the prior hypothesis on the process of interest (or the model) to data. Then, researchers examine the shape of the fitted model. In this case, the model should be exist prior to analysis.

If I contrast those methods in their philosophy, I would say, conventional statistics is inductive, but HB is deductive.

This difference is not serious in the simple statistical models such as linear regression, ANOVA and GLM. Since the shape of the model is limited, researchers usually do not care about the process of interest, but only care about significances of coefficients in the model. Simple statistical models can be used like conventional statistical tests.

However, as the model become flexible, researchers must pay attention to the shape of the process of interest prior to analysis. HB can model complex processes very flexibly, and can integrate multiple processes which interact each others. In this case, the significance of individual parameter is no longer important, rather the behavior of entire process is important.

Unfortunately, some researchers did not noticed this difference, and still care about the "significance" of individual parameters in the large complex model without considering the entire behavior of the model. The reason they still care about the "significance" is probably because "significance" is easy to understand, and they do not have idea to discuss the result from HB.

In my talk, I'd like to show one example to discuss the result from HB. That is quantitative prediction of the process under multiple scenarios. Actually, the result is still insufficient, and it needs more suggestions. I would be happy if I discuss about above my idea and my results there.

Conservation of Wildlife and Oil Palm (Kinabatangan River, Sabah)

If I were asked "What was the highlight of this trip to Malaysia for you?", I would answer "River cruise along the Kinabatangan". Probably, most of other participant would answer so.

During the trip in Sabah, we stayed several days at the accommodations which located beside the Kinabatangan River. And we enjoyed wildlife observation from the boat in mornings and evenings.

Thanks to skilled guides and our luck, we had chances to meet many species of mammals, birds and reptiles. Proboscis monkey, crab-eating macaque, hornbills, eagles and kingfishers were frequently observed species. Also we occasionally met orangutans, leaf monkeys, gibbons, Borneo elephants, crocodiles, etc... Accompanying people who had been working there said that we were unbelievably lucky guys to meet such species within a couple of days.

The only regret was I could not take a nice photo by myself. One of our colleagues took beautiful animal photos during the cruise. I expect he would soon upload some of them to his blog.

Anyway, it was really precious time for us.

During the stay at Kinabatangan, we learned about the wildlife conservation acts in the lower Kinabatangan which carried out by Borneo Conservation Trust and SARAYA Co. LTD.

Not only in the lower Kinabatangan, the biggest issue in wildlife conservation in Borneo island is oil palm plantation. Oil palm plantation has been spread around Borneo for last couple of decades, and it resulted in rapid destruction of rain forest and wildlife there. During the river cruise we frequently met the scenery that the oil palm plantation came close to the river which cause a significant effect for wildlife habitat.

First lecture was given by Mr. Hirotsugu Daishima from SARAYA. SARAYA is Japanese private company, and manufactures soaps from palm oil. As a pioneer of cooperate social responsibility (CSR) and wildlife conservation in Japan, they have been working for rehabilitation of the lower Kinabatangan area where oil palm plantation had once altered jungles, with Borneo Conservation Trust. Also as a member of Round table on Sustainable Palm Oil (RSPO), they contribute to the building of certification for oil palm development which minimize the damage to biodiversity and consider the welfare to the people who works in the plantation. In addition, they provide the website to appeal the such situation of Borneo's jungle and their activities for conservation, and plan study tours to Borneo for Japanese consumers.

The most impressive point in his lecture was that they were working with two opposite stakeholders: the conservationist and the industry group. Since SARAYA is a part of palm oil industry, and they need to continue their own businesses, they have involved to RSPO to realize the true sustainable oil palm plantations in tropical regions. However, they think that working only with RSPO is not preferable because major companies in RSPO still does not accept several regulations in oil palm plantation which seems to be necessary to conserve habitats for wildlife. For this reason, SARAYA made a decision to act for conservation of wildlife at the lower Kinabatangan with Borneo Conservation Trust, as long as they could.

Mr. Daishima said, "Still, we have not decided which side to take. The effort of RSPO seems to be insufficient, and it is difficult to change the mind of majority of them. But we would continue to participate with RSPO, and would like to propose for revisions of RSPO frameworks. This is our responsibility as a member of palm oil industry. On the other hand, we would continue to act for rehabilitation of wildlife habitat at the lower Kinabatangan because it is our responsibility as an palm oil company."

Next lecture was given by Dr. Toshinori Tsubouchi from Borneo Conservation Trust and Sabah Wildlife Department. As an active conservationist (also as a veterinary), he has been working in dozens of countries until now, and now is the one of the key person in conservation of the lower Kinabatangan. In the lecture, he introduced about the rehabilitation project of wildlife habitat (especially for orangutans and elephants) at the lower Kinabatangan which was carried out by Borneo Conservation Trust.

Also he gave a very impressive talk about difficulties and conflicts on wildlife conservation in developing counties. In the developed countries such as EU, USA or Japan, it is relatively easy to build a systematic strategy and consensus with stakeholders for wildlife conservation. However, because of poverty, lack of education, corruption and pressures from global economy, conservation acts are not easy as in the developed countries.

He emphasized that scientific theories does not help in the developed country for conservation, but solution is always ad hoc. It is probably true, however, non of us agreed with it. During the session, we had a very active discussion with him, but never leached to a conclusion, unfortunately.

I believe that scientists must always have roles in every conservation projects: giving a direction to the plan, developing techniques to carry out and validating the project for further improvement and generalization. But scientists usually could neither do reconciling conflicts among stakeholders nor making a decision. In other words, scientists cannot work by themselves, but always need collaboration with other activist. Probably, this is a reason why he said that scientific knowledge does not help.

We need to talk with conservation activists, and conservation activists need talk with us. Then, we need to work together. During this session, however, I could not find the way to talk and work with him. Still I do not have answer.

Probably we need to change the mind, and also they need to change the mind. The discussion with him have made a very little change to my mind to open up. I hope the discussion with us also have made him a change to his mind.

Kinabatangan River

Blue Eared Kingfisher Alcedo euryzona

Oil palm came close to the river

Conservation of Biodiversity and Sustainable Forestry in Malaysia (Deramakot Forest Reserve, Sabah)

I had tripped to Borneo, Malaysia from 23 Sep to 4 Oct for study tour of GCOE. Since it was first time to visit tropical region, everything I had met was exciting and curious. I had really enjoyed precious time.

The purpose of this trip was to visit various sites and stakeholders which involved to conservation of biodiversity and/or development of tropical forest, and to realize the current status and ongoing problems on tropical rain forests.

Here I would like to report on the trip, in several posts.

Firstly, we visited to Deramakot Forest Reserve in Sabah to learn about the sustainable forestry in topical rain forest. Owing to technical support from Germany, forest management plans were seemed to be excellent, at least better than that in Japan: intensive inventory, strict guidelines for harvest and retention of trees, well-developed techniques for reduced impact logging, etc... I believe that the systems of Deramakot should be effective for sustainable timber harvest and biodiversity conservation.

However, I noticed couple of problems. One is a lack of long-term monitoring of stand recovery after harvest. Although the damage from the harvest was very small, only four or around big trees were harvested per hectare, it should result in the change of micro-environment around the logged site such as stand structure, light condition of ground and surface soil condition. Especially, regeneration should be sensitive to such conditions. Long-term monitoring of growth of saplings and species composition should be conducted, as well as improvement of techniques of harvest and silviculture.

Another is total balance of the management unit. The reduced impact logging system in Deramakot probably requires much cost than conventional management practice. In the Deramakot system, the target area was almost perfectly monitored: species name, size, status, and even the location was recorded for all the target trees. The area was also monitored during and after the harvest to ensure that management plan was appropriately carried out. This might be additional cost to conventional management. In addition, forest certification (FSC in this case) might be another cost.

Those intensive management is possible probably because Malaysia is still developing country. Thanks to cheap salary and enough human resources, they could carry out such well-developed system. But Malaysia's economy should be grown as much as developed country near future, probably in the next couple of decades. It means that Deramakot system will financially fail no matter how it is preferable to sustainable management and biodiversity conservation.

When I asked above question to the assistant director of the site, he answered that they do not care about the cost because they are government. This answer came out probably because Deramakot system had an aspect of experiment. But developing "financially sustainable system" as well as biodiversity conservation and sustainable resource utilization is necessary to spread this system especially to the site which managed by private company. I hope they continue to improve the system to realize the "real" sustainable management system in tropical rain forest.

Plantation after harvest to assist regeneration

Harvest plan. All candidate tree for harvest is mapped.

Serial number for timber. Number is also tagged to stump for inspection.

Needs for assisted migration?

Rapid climate change has already caused changes to habitat for plant and animal species, leading to local extinction of some species, if species could not recolonize to new habitat or adapt to local environment. The subject of assisted migration (or managed relocation), which intends species to transfer to the suitable habitat outside of species range, has become common for couple of years.

When I learned about the subjects of assisted migration, I could not accept it as the real matter at first. But now, I have realized that the needs for the assisted migration is became widely accepted, as the risk of species extinction has been evaluated from the myriad researches such as long-term ecosystem monitoring and climate-niche model studies. Actually, some guidelines to decide assisted migration has already been proposed.

On the other hands, some researchers have questioned whether assisted migration would be an effective strategy to conservation, because of its risks. Transferring the species to the outside of the original species range cause similar problems as invasion of exotic species to recipient habitat: extirpation of local species, introduction of new pests and herbivore, and hybrids between local and introduced species have already been reported. Consequently, they insisted that the risks of assisted migration were often uncertain, and precautionary principle which species should not be transferred to the outside of habitat should be undertaken.

Discussions on this topic has been continued on TREE. Majority of them insisted that the necessity of individual and qualitative assessment of needs, benefits and risks of assisted migration, albeit to precautionary principle. On the contrary, one mentioned that assisted migration is not a fundamental solution to prevent extinction, but a "techno-fix".

The problem underlying the transfer of species along with climate change is slightly different from other problems on conservation biology. Existing problems such as habitat degradation or invasive species probably have "ideal states", which is preservation of habitat or original state before invasive species had been introduced. However, loss of habitat due to climate change does not have such "ideal state", rather the situation is continued to be getting worse, and may not be recovered. The motivation is to make a situation to better, at most. Therefore "do-nothing policy" may not be a better solution, and precautionary principle could not be applied to this type of problem.

As the most of authors pointed out, the vulnerability of species to extinct with climate change, and the potential risks underlying assisted migration are often uncertain. Small scale experiment of assisted migration in various endangered genera or species should urgently be taken to reduce uncertainty.

Original article:http://motoshi.tk/index.php?Web%C6%FC%B5%AD%2F2009-07-13

Biodiversity conservasion and forest management

On July 7, Mainichi-shimbun reported that Forestry Agency of Japan is considering biodiversity conservation in forest managements in the next revision of Forest and Forestry Master Plan.

Needless to say, biodiversity conservation should be considered in the forest management, and it may be benefits for future generations. But, the problem is that there is no substantial guideline to evaluate and conserve biodiversity in current Japan. For this reason, the article said that the committee concluded that there is urgent need to increase the knowledge and data about forest ecosystems. I agree with it.

However, as far as reading the news release from Forestry Agency, the most important message from the committee seems not to be data. One committee mentioned that following:

It is necessary to promoting adaptive management of forest with scientific point of view when we consider about biodiversity conservation in the measures. In Japan, research (on forest ecosystem) is often insufficient, so that the amount of scientific knowledge should be considered. The measures should not be assertive, rather it should emphasize that there is urgent need for research to reduce uncertainty. (translated by M. Tomita)

生物多様性を施策に取り入れるには、科学的な視点から問題を捉え、順応的な森林管理を推進することが必要。日本においては必ずしも調査研究の蓄積や分析が十分ではなく、どの程度科学的な知見が得られているかに応じて書き方を工夫することが必要。施策についても断定的に書くのではなく、むしろ不確実性を減らすために必要な調査研究が必要であることを強調すべき。

The important point is "promoting adaptive management of forest with scientific point of view". Scientists are expected not only to increase data about forest ecosystems, but rather to evaluate individual management practices under uncertainty, to give new address to the next plans, and to integrate those knowledge to discuss about common rules for the biodiversity conservation.

On the other hands, I could not agree with some opinions from the committee. For example, some attendants pointed "further necessity of road construction" or "compensation to additional cost owing to biodiversity conservation". I think those comments were probably because they had been confused loss of biodiversity in Japanese forest with existing problems about degradation of plantations due to insufficient management.

Actually, it may be true that insufficient management is one of the cause of degradation of biodiversity. But it is obvious that intensive management of plantation, especially thinning, is not directly linked to biodiversity conservation.

Management practices, like thinning or road construction, should be conducted as a part of adaptive management. And those practice should be evaluated from the scientific point of view. I hope that it should be emphasized in the final report of the committee.

Original article:http://motoshi.tk/index.php?Web%C6%FC%B5%AD%2F2009-07-07

Blogging is easy, but is it enough?

It is easy to say about something, but who cares about it?

Latest story on Asahi-shimbun said that 26.95 million people own blog in Japan. Despite this statistics did not consider about one person own multiple blog, it is obvious that not a small number of Japanese express about them on the web.

I myself have been blogging for four years since undergrad. And now, my blog has up to 100 unique access per day, even though most of the contents are not familiar to non-ecologist. At the same time, I subscribe about 100 blogs via Google Reader.

It is to say, we are now connected on the web by blogging. Especially, blog is effective tool to openly communicate and discuss with unspecified people. Thanks to blog, we are now able to access and even join to cool discussion at anywhere, anytime.

On the other hands, blog would waste our time. I actually update my blog almost everyday, but most of the article do say just what I did today. Who cares about what I did in my study, what I ate for lunch ...etc., every day?

Blog is convinient to express ourselves, however, articles should be selected and edited for open discussion.

For this reason, I opened this blog. This blog may not publish the article on very lastest topics, rather I would pick-up and edit my essays from my original blog.