“When I want to take, with my little hand net, the fish from the aquaria, the individuals that I fish first are the curious ones because they’re not freaked out by the net.” ~ Carolin Sommer-Trembo
Curiosity, biodiversity, rewilding — these are the exciting places Carolin Sommer-Trembo Ph.D. takes us today.
Carolin is an evolutionary biologist. Her big goal is to focus attention on animal behavior as it effects evolution and biodiversity. To get there, she has studied curiosity in cichlid fish in Africa’s Lake Tanganyika, combining some good old-fashioned field work with exciting new investigative tools, including AI and genetic scissors.
Short version: curiosity matters!
First, they found a strong correlation between exploratory behavior and the habitat – and body shape – among the cichlid species.
Then, using data from studied species, they were able to use AI to predict which species that they had not yet studied would be curious.
Finally, they have identified a spot on the cichlid genes that has a near-perfect correlation with exploratory behavior. Using genetic “scissors” to modify the gene sequence, they were able to manipulate embryos to create a more curious fish!
“I thought the mutants would be less explorative, and it was actually the opposite…It was just a stupid assumption. I don’t even recall why we all thought that. It’s just that, you knock something out, and you think something does’t work any more…but it isn’t as easy at that. Some genes enhance stuff, some genes repress certain pathways…In this case, it means when the expression is very low, we have a very high exploratory tendency. It’s like a negative correlation, and I think our minds assume a positive one: the more, the more. In this case, it’s the less, the more.
I came to the conversation interested in the curiosity angle, but Carolin’s impassioned case for the importance of this basic research to eventually rebuilding vanishing biodiversity — and the aforementioned “rewilding” — puts the discussion on another level entirely.
Curiosity doesn’t only promote biodiversity, it might just save us all.
Listen to Choose to Be Curious #245: Curiosity Promotes Biodiversity, with Carolin Sommer-Trembo
Learn more about Carolin Sommer-Trembo’s work as a post-doctoral researcher. She is currently affiliated with both the Salzburg Lab at University of Basel and Marcelo Sánchez’s Lab at the University of Zurich. Check out her blog; you can find her on LinkedIn.
Read the story, Curiosity Promotes Biodiversity, that first caught my eye. Hurrah for science communications!
If you liked this conversation, you might enjoy these C2BC Classics on animal curiosity and/or science communication: Animal Curiosity at the National Zoo; Curiosity in Apes, with Sofia Forss; Curiosity, Science & Humor Walk into a Bar…with Kasha Patel; A Special Alchemy: Curiosity, Empathy & Social Media, with Dr. Ben Rein; and India Asks Why, with Ruchi Manglunia & Shweata N. Hegde.
In a delightful coincidence, both Carolin and Ruchi (from the India Asks Why episode above) both competed in FameLab Switzerland, where they had “three minutes to win the judges and the crowd with a scientific talk that excels for its content, clarity and charisma.”
Cover photo of Carolin Sommer-Trembo by Eleni Kougionis and the University of Basel. A curious fish of the species Eretmodus cyanostictus, also called the “Tanganyika clown” due its nice spots photo by Simon Hornung (below). Photographs used with permission.
Theme music by Sean Balick; “Lakeside Path” by Duck Lake, via Blue Dot Sessions.
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