Cam Hoffbeck | UoA 3MT Doctoral Winner 2023 — Transcript

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1. 0:03what do you imagine when you think of
2. 0:05the animals of New Zealand
3. 0:08I bet most people would say a kiwi but
4. 0:10today I'd like to argue that the Tuatara
5. 0:12a reptile that's lived in New Zealand
6. 0:14for 250 million years should be a strong
7. 0:17contender
8. 0:18Tuatara are super unique they're the
9. 0:21only surviving species in their order
10. 0:22and no they're not a lizard and they've
11. 0:25barely changed from their ancestors over
12. 0:26millions of years
13. 0:28but I'm a microbiologist so when I see
14. 0:31an amazing animal like this my first
15. 0:33thought is the what lives in its guts
16. 0:37the bacteria living inside of animals
17. 0:39are super important for digestion immune
18. 0:42system and lots of other functions so
19. 0:44for Tuatara which used to live
20. 0:46throughout New Zealand but is now
21. 0:48isolated in predator-free sanctuaries
22. 0:50and Islands we want to understand what
23. 0:52bacteria they have and how they get them
24. 0:54this can tell us what threats we need to
25. 0:56watch out for in the future and as a
26. 0:58look back in time to what bacteria other
27. 1:01ancient animals used to live with
28. 1:03the sanctuaries where Tuatara live form
29. 1:05a temperature gradient with warmer sites
30. 1:07in the north and cooler sites in the
31. 1:09south
32. 1:09like all reptiles Tuatara are vulnerable
33. 1:12to Rising temperatures and understanding
34. 1:14how this impacts their bacteria is
35. 1:16really important when we think about
36. 1:18conserving them under climate change
37. 1:20most Mainland to Atara come from a
38. 1:22single island takaporewa in the Cook
39. 1:24Strait and have been translocated around
40. 1:26the country to protect their population
41. 1:28numbers
42. 1:29for my PhD I went out to sample gut
43. 1:31community and measured body condition
44. 1:33and parasitism of Tuatara at five
45. 1:36sanctuaries and The Source on takaparewa
46. 1:39I went out to these sanctuaries to catch
47. 1:41Tuatara swab their intestinal tract
48. 1:44and bring these swabs back to the lab to
49. 1:46understand what their gut Community is
50. 1:48made of and what shapes it
51. 1:50I found that temperature is a driving
52. 1:52factor of gut community and that Tuatara
53. 1:54at different sites do have different
54. 1:56bacteria but not as different as we
55. 1:58might think I found 40 species of
56. 2:00bacteria and Common from Tuatara from
57. 2:02all six sites which is a shocking amount
58. 2:04of similarity considering some of these
59. 2:06two Atara haven't seen each other in 12
60. 2:08years
61. 2:09I also found that body condition and
62. 2:12parasitism were correlated with
63. 2:14different communities this may mean that
64. 2:16Tuatara are healthier when they have
65. 2:17certain bacteria which is really
66. 2:19important when we think about the diet
67. 2:21and environment that we make available
68. 2:22to Tuatara in sanctuaries and in
69. 2:25captivity
70. 2:26if Tuatara needs certain bacteria to be
71. 2:28healthy we need to ensure that the
72. 2:30source of those bacteria is made
73. 2:31available to them to help Tuatara
74. 2:33continue re-establishing across
75. 2:35alotearoa this work represents a look
76. 2:38back in time to an ancient microbial
77. 2:40community and gives us some clues for
78. 2:42the future of conservation for this
79. 2:43unique and treasured species which makes
80. 2:45New Zealand its only home thank you
81. 2:48[Applause]