Guess what! Those nasty blowflies swarming around that dead animal aren’t just devouring it’s flesh. They’re also sampling their DNA. Scientists in Germany discovered that the DNA stays inside the fly long enough for it to be sequenced. This means it gives scientist a “snapshot” of the biodiversity of the given area. This can be very useful. For example 10 years ago in the republic of the congo thousands of gorillas were killed by the ebola virus and only 44 carcasses were found through active monitoring. The reason behind it is that the carcasses are disposed of efficiently and quickly by decomposers, and blowflies are decomposers. So accurate animal populations can be achieved. I think this is a pretty cool idea and having the populations of all the animals in a biodiversity together will help scientists out a lot.http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=flesh-eating-flies-map-forest-biodiversity
Who would have known? I hate seeing those flies hanging out around dead animals. It is cool to think that there is some good to come out of it though. It sounds very useful for scientists and research for biodiversity. It is an accurate way to document these populations and that is a very resourceful technique.
ReplyDeleteCool, its sounds kind of like Jurassic park. I agree that this will prove useful to scientist, and help provide new insight into biodiversity. Quickly decomposing flesh is important, and can keep diseases from spreading.
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