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The future is here - an easy-to-use toolkit for integrating genetics into conservation management - Professor Carolyn Hogg

Wednesday, November 15, 2023
12:30 PM - 12:40 PM
Sirius / Pleiades Room, Esplanade Hotel Fremantle

Speaker

Professor Carolyn Hogg
University of Sydney

The future is here - an easy-to-use toolkit for integrating genetics into conservation management

Abstract

Over the past decade, the development of genetic and genomic tools for conservation management have come forward in leaps and bounds. Once considered a “nice to have”, genetic data is fast becoming an essential item for informing and managing translocations. However, due to the complexity of the field, easily using genetic data for decision-making and monitoring remains beyond the reach of most managers and conservation biologists. In May 2020, we launched the Threatened Species Initiative (TSI), a program designed to generate genomic resources for Australia’s threatened species. Critical to the project is not only the generation of reference genomes and population genetic data but an online portal for conservation managers. The toolkit is a “one stop shot” from collecting samples to generating and analysing genetic data to an easily interpretable genetic management report. The TSI analysis portal is a point and click web interface where you can pull in the raw sequence data and select the population genetic information you need for management decisions, and the system will run the analysis for you and produce a standardised report. We will show how the current toolkit works and provide case study examples for how it is being used to inform translocations and the management of threatened species.

Biography

Dr Carolyn Hogg is a conservation biologist who has been working with threatened species for over 25 years. Carolyn is the Science Lead for the Threatened Species Initiative, a program generating genomic resources for Australia’s threatened species, and co-lead of the Australasian Wildlife Genomics Group at the University of Sydney.
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