Genetic assignment of large seizures of elephant ivory reveals Africa’s major poaching hotspots

Wasser, Samuel K.; Brown, Lisa; Mailand, Celia; Mondol, Samrat; Clark, William; Laurie, CC; Weir, Bruce S.

doi:10.1126/science.aaa2457

Cited by 170 publications

(199 citation statements)

References 29 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

190

Contrasting

Unclassified

Order By: Relevance

“…Table 1; complete data are presented in Dataset S1. Details for 12 of the seizures are given in Wasser et al (2). Two additional seizures were included in our study and were not available at the time of the Wasser et al (2) study.…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The lag times for each seizure are shown in Fig. 3, where they are grouped by geographic origin based on DNA analysis (2). Uncertainty for the calculated lag time, defined here as the expanded uncertainty (U), incorporates uncertainty in the calibration curve (Fig.…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…wildlife | forensics | isotopes | Africa | genetics T he illegal trade in elephant ivory has increased significantly in the past decade (1,2), with studies estimating the current rate of decline of regional African elephant populations to be as high as 8%, primarily due to poaching (3,4). Central African forest elephant populations decreased by ca.…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

“…We then report 231 14 C-calibrated ages of seized ivory and discuss how these ages influence our understanding of the illegal ivory trade in Africa. We use specimens previously studied by Wasser et al (2), who assigned ivory to its general location of origin using DNA assignment methods.…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

See 3 more Smart Citations

Radiocarbon dating of seized ivory confirms rapid decline in African elephant populations and provides insight into illegal trade

Cerling

Barnette

Chesson

et al. 2016

Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A.

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Carbon-14 measurements on 231 elephant ivory specimens from 14 large ivory seizures (≥0.5 ton) made between 2002 and 2014 show that most ivory (ca. 90%) was derived from animals that had died less than 3 y before ivory was confiscated. This indicates that the assumption of recent elephant death for mortality estimates of African elephants is correct: Very little “old” ivory is included in large ivory shipments from Africa. We found only one specimen of the 231 analyzed to have a lag time longer than 6 y. Patterns of trade differ by regions: East African ivory, based on genetic assignments of geographic origin, has a much higher fraction of “rapid” transit than ivory originating in the Tridom region of Cameroon–Gabon–Congo. Carbon-14 is an important tool in understanding patterns of movement of illegal wildlife products.

show abstract

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

mentioning

confidence: 99%

mentioning

confidence: 99%

See 2 more Smart Citations

Radiocarbon dating of seized ivory confirms rapid decline in African elephant populations and provides insight into illegal trade

Cerling

Barnette

Chesson

et al. 2016

Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A.

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…Within the last decade, intense poaching and habitat reduction have caused a decline of more than 60% in Central African elephant numbers (Maisels et al., 2013). Gabon now hosts half of the remaining global population of L. cyclotis , but the northeast of the country suffered the steepest declines recorded for the decade 2004–2014 (Poulsen et al., 2017) and was revealed to be a major source of illegal ivory within Africa (Wasser et al., 2015). To respond to this conservation crisis, there is a desperate and immediate need to develop efficient tools to monitor forest elephant populations and threats.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Single‐nucleotide polymorphism discovery and panel characterization in the African forest elephant

Bourgeois

Senn

Kaden

et al. 2018

Ecology and Evolution

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

The continuing decline in forest elephant (Loxodonta cyclotis) numbers due to poaching and habitat reduction is driving the search for new tools to inform management and conservation. For dense rainforest species, basic ecological data on populations and threats can be challenging and expensive to collect, impeding conservation action in the field. As such, genetic monitoring is being increasingly implemented to complement or replace more burdensome field techniques. Single‐nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) are particularly cost‐effective and informative markers that can be used for a range of practical applications, including population census, assessment of human impact on social and genetic structure, and investigation of the illegal wildlife trade. SNP resources for elephants are scarce, but next‐generation sequencing provides the opportunity for rapid, inexpensive generation of SNP markers in nonmodel species. Here, we sourced forest elephant DNA from 23 samples collected from 10 locations within Gabon, Central Africa, and applied double‐digest restriction‐site‐associated DNA (ddRAD) sequencing to discover 31,851 tags containing SNPs that were reduced to a set of 1,365 high‐quality candidate SNP markers. A subset of 115 candidate SNPs was then selected for assay design and validation using 56 additional samples. Genotyping resulted in a high conversion rate (93%) and a low per allele error rate (0.07%). This study provides the first panel of 107 validated SNP markers for forest elephants. This resource presents great potential for new genetic tools to produce reliable data and underpin a step‐change in conservation policies for this elusive species.

show abstract

Applying systems thinking to inform studies of wildlife trade in primates

Blair

Lê

Thạch³

et al. 2017

American J Primatol

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Wildlife trade presents a major threat to primate populations, which are in demand from local to international scales for a variety of uses from food and traditional medicine to the exotic pet trade. We argue that an interdisciplinary framework to facilitate integration of socioeconomic, anthropological, and biological data across multiple spatial and temporal scales is essential to guide the study of wildlife trade dynamics and its impacts on primate populations. Here, we present a new way to design research on wildlife trade in primates using a systems thinking framework. We discuss how we constructed our framework, which follows a social-ecological system framework, to design an ongoing study of local, regional, and international slow loris (Nycticebus spp.) trade in Vietnam. We outline the process of iterative variable exploration and selection via this framework to inform study design. Our framework, guided by systems thinking, enables recognition of complexity in study design, from which the results can inform more holistic, site-appropriate, and effective trade management practices. We place our framework in the context of other approaches to studying wildlife trade and discuss options to address foreseeable challenges to implementing this new framework.

show abstract

Genetic assignment of large seizures of elephant ivory reveals Africa’s major poaching hotspots

Cited by 170 publications

References 29 publications

Radiocarbon dating of seized ivory confirms rapid decline in African elephant populations and provides insight into illegal trade

Radiocarbon dating of seized ivory confirms rapid decline in African elephant populations and provides insight into illegal trade

Single‐nucleotide polymorphism discovery and panel characterization in the African forest elephant

Applying systems thinking to inform studies of wildlife trade in primates

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About