About This Project

Despite growing to over 1.8m, Chinese giant salamanders are incredibly difficult to detect in nature as their populations have been catastrophically depleted due to overexploitation. Knowing where they are in the wild is crucial to protect remaining populations. We will trial eDNA methods to detect Chinese giant salamanders using animals seized from the illegal wildlife trade that are housed at London Zoo. Once methods have been validated, they will be used in the field to find the giants!

Ask the Scientists

What is the context of this research?

Chinese giant salamanders are Critically Endangered and considered a global conservation priority for maintaining evolutionary history. Population declines have been attributed to overexploitation to supply the rapidly expanding farming industry and habitat loss.

Ecological surveys are labour intensive and expensive; this coupled with the rarity of Chinese giant salamanders means they are difficult to detect. Alternative survey methods need to be developed to efficiently cover large areas of habitat in a relatively short period of time.

Living organisms shed DNA in the environment, this eDNA can be extracted and used to confirm the presence of the species in the environment, even if the individual animals are not observed.

What is the significance of this project?

eDNA methods could be a new tool to help us efficiently detect these wild populations across their range in China. Identifying where the last remaining populations exist is a key piece of information needed to direct our conservation efforts and advocate for the protection of this living fossil.

But firstly we need to check the eDNA methods will work, using water samples taken from Chinese giant salamanders enclosures at London Zoo. Following this we can optimise the methods for taking water samples at the field sites across China to detect Chinese giant salamanders in the wild.

What are the goals of the project?

Our study will validate methods to detect Chinese giant salamander eDNA and evaluate how this detection may be influence by environmental factors using water samples from enclosures at London Zoo.

First we will validate the qPCR method developed by Fukumoto et al 2015. Second, we will test two different filters to determine the one most suitable for field sampling.

Following this we will vary water temperature and monitor eDNA degradation over time, to establish whether these could be important considerations when attempting to detect Chinese giant salamanders in the wild.

We will publish our results so that any new methods are available for the wider Chinese giant salamander conservation community to adopt