Public Lecture | Detecting residential cetaceans in Hong Kong waters using environmental DNA
Public Lecture | Detecting residential cetaceans in Hong Kong waters using environmental DNA
10
Dec
The Public Lecture “Detecting residential cetaceans in Hong Kong waters using environmental DNA”, will take place on December 10 at Nape Campus.
About the Talk:
In Hong Kong waters, there are two residential cetacean species, the Indo-Pacific Humpback Dolphin (also known as Chinese White Dolphin; Sousa chinensis) and the Finless Porpoise (Neophocaena phocaenoides). These iconic species play an important role in coastal ecosystems, yet their abundance is declining due to anthropogenic pressures. Environmental DNA (eDNA) analysis, which directly extracts DNA from environmental samples, is a promising method for the efficient monitoring of threatened species. eDNA analysis has been applied to various organisms, but its application to cetaceans is still limited. In this talk, I will overview the basics of eDNA analysis and introduce our recent projects that utilize eDNA to monitor these cetaceans. We developed qPCR primers specific to S.chinensis and cetacean-specific eDNA metabarcoding primers. Additionally, we initiated a project aimed at estimating dolphin age from DNA. These methods are potentially useful for collecting ecological information for cetacean conservation in Hong Kong waters.
About the Speaker:
Ushio Masayuki is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Ocean Science at the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology (HKUST). He started his academic career as a forest ecologist in 2005 and has been actively involved in research in ecology, covering a wide range of topics such as tropical forest ecology, nutrient cycling, community assembly, environmental DNA analysis, and statistical ecology. He moved from Kyoto University to Hong Kong in 2022 and began ecological research in local coastal regions. In Hong Kong, his research team is developing environmental DNA-based methods to monitor cetacean and fish communities in coastal ecosystems.
Details:
Date: Tuesday, 10 December 2024
Time: 19:00 – 20:30 (GMT+8)
Location: Speaker’s Hall, Nape Campus
Language: English
Organised by Institute of Science and Environment
Moderated by Prof. Karen Tagulao
*This is a free event and open to the general public
