We've got now going to move to a quick, very quick Q and A session
so I'm just going to invite all of the session speakers back up on stage
and we will go straight to any questions that we have from the audience.
Harriet.
Thank you. I'm Harriet Bailey, International Manager at the Australian Antarctic Division.
There's been a lot of talk about science today obviously, but there's also been a
lot of talk about technology and that's a really different aspect.
How, and this also links I think also to the the panel we had before, what are we doing to make
sure we've got the right technologists who are working with us and how we train them up?
You're a little bit premature Harriet, in that we're very next speaker is going to introduce our technology
program that could probably answer a lot of that but it's a great question and the two things
go hand in glove. Really our technology and our science branches are intimately linked and really
informing each other frequently and so I'll let Phil talk a little bit more about the specifics.
Dave?
I have a question for Leonie, so you talk about how rapidly krill DNA degrades.
Is that the same for all species, they all degrade at the same rate?
Yeah, well, it depends on a lot of things. It depends on what environment you're in.
For example, warmer temperatures usually lead to faster degradation.
There were experiments with different fish species in the exact same environment and their eDNA degraded at different rates
so it depends on a lot of things and just from what we did with krill here I wouldn't want to
make any predictions of, you know, any other species in a different environment or even the
same environment. It pretty much needs to be tested for each species separately.
Thanks Leonie.
Nathan?
Yes, thanks for those. I think this question is to either Alex or Johnny and it's to do with
the fact that no one lives in Antarctica so the question is how do we adapt, and maybe
Barbara as well, how do we adapt and support those species in a ongoing changing climate?
Thanks Nathan. I think we've got some great, no, seriously thank you, it's a good question and
I think what it what it does it is allows me to remind you and others that we actually have some
really clear instruments in place that allow us to put in place mechanisms for protection and
conservation I think. You know the Antarctic Treaty, the Protocol on Environmental Protection, the
Antarctic Treaty, has got mechanisms in place, the committee for Environmental Protection in
CCAMLR have got the mandate and the power if you like, to make decisions that can protect
these species and I think from my point of view where I see the most value in my science and we'll
talk about this in Gaia's led symposium or discussion later this afternoon, is when we work
together with policy makers and then our national delegations and I say our because we're working
cross-country here, to actually get those right decisions made.
And I think decisions in those forums, difficult as they might be sometimes, are actually the key to the protection and the
changes in managing the changes that we're seeing.
That's a short answer I could talk to you about it for longer but for now that's my first cut.
Thanks Alex.
I know Dave's trying to wrap us up but I have a quick question for, oh, you have another question online?
Go for it. So we have a question online from Will Price.
A question for Leonie.
Is there research of the AAD going on into using eDNA for
quantification of species in the Southern Ocean?
So that method I've been talking about, that targets krill. That is quantifying the krill
eDNA in a sample. Now whether the amount of krill eDNA actually relates to how much krill there is,
is an additional question so krill eDNA abundance that we can detect would actually relates
to abundance of krill detected with other methods, that's the next step that we're
working on but yes so there's different genetic methods some of them will
allow you to quantify the eDNA of a particular species other others are more present absence
but the krill one is the only one at the moment that we're doing to really quantify but
then there's a lot of other work that is detecting a whole range of other species including
diet, sorry penguin or other predator diet, as we can tell from this what's left in the scats
what the DNA we can detect in the scats, so there's a lot of a lot of different work happening.
Thanks Leonie.
Nicole, do you mind if I just add something to Alex's answer in response to Nathan?
Go for it.
It's an opportunity, so Nathan I noticed part of your question specifically related to people
in Antarctica and I think that's a really good question because, as you could see from my talk, people are concentrated
into particular types of areas in Antarctica and when we talk about marine protection in Antarctica
and, you know, the proposals that go through the CEP and CCAMLR, they tend to focus more on
the Southern Ocean and offshore regions and we already have a system of protection for
terrestrial areas so I think coasts and those coastal environments are actually an overlooked
area in terms of conservation and protection
and something that is worthy of consideration, particularly around the fact that people are
concentrated in these areas and there might be some very sensitive habitats
in these coastal areas and so just being aware of those and being able to manage our
presence there in relation to that will go a long way, as well as maybe then also thinking
about marine protected areas and some of these coastal ecosystems so not just the
Southern Ocean but incorporating that whole transition right up into the terrestrial.
Thanks Johnny. You actually segued into the question that I had for both you and Alex,
which is we heard from the Minister's words, this morning her focus on the East Antarctic MPA and
I'm just wondering if you could make a comment on how fit for purpose our Marine Science Program is
in terms of delivering the science in to be able to inform the design of an East Antarctic MPA?
Thanks Nicole.
I think the short answer is that it's very fit for purpose. It's understanding what we have in those ecosystems is absolutely
fundamental to making a strong case to protect them.
Now we don't need to know about everything that's there but what we do need to know is have some broad indications of
where we have vulnerable species or where we have important species areas of biodiversity.
I think the work that we're doing gives us that information and actually provides the strongest possible justification for
getting MPAs, like the East Antarctica up.
Thanks Alex it's exactly what I wanted to hear.
Johnny, do you want to add to that?
Just very briefly that you know with the knowledge of the partnerships that we have across the SRIs and the AAPP
you know, I think we've really got it nicely covered, all those different particular
habitats and environments to be able to inform that decision making around area protection.
Great.
David, and David might be our last question for the session so that we can try and regain some time.
David Sutor, Australian Chief Research Officer at the Australian Institute of Marine Science and soon to be AAD.
For Alex, you made the point in your talk that you had heaps of data and you just also made the point that you
don't need to know about absolutely everything
with the soon to be established East Antarctic monitoring program, I'm just wondering
if you've got a sense of the process or a framework to think about what are the
actual critical data, the critical indicators that you need to measure going forward?
Thanks David. I think what we need to do first is to understand what
we're actually doing so at the moment for example we are, the collective we,
I'm not exactly involved but there are people in the Antarctic Division and
elsewhere, that are actually trying to understand what we're doing both at the AAD and more broadly
across the Australian Antarctic program and more broadly across Antarctica.
I think that's a really good starting point. I think then we look our levers and our drivers, if you like, our triggers for monitoring.
We have some legislative and statutory obligations. They're obvious ones but
we also have things like threatening processes that are going to, if you like, elevate the
priority or threatened environments, threatened species that may well elevate the priority and
so I think starting with an audit going through a process of understanding what our key drivers
are for monitoring then looking at the processes that might be affecting species.
I think through a process like that we'll actually start to get pretty close to understanding what's
essential, what's important and what can maybe be sort of left on the back burner for the time being.
So that's a very short snapshot of a probably fairly long and involved process.
Thanks.