WildGenes Blog - Working with elephants in Cambodia part 2

04/08/2016 in Conservation

Following on from Helen’s WildGenes update in June, I’m pleased to say that lab work on the Asian Elephant samples is now in full swing at the Royal University of Phnom Penh (RUPP) in Cambodia.

As soon as the reagents arrived we started training the lab technicians at RUPP along with a couple of staff members from WWF Cambodia and Fauna and Flora International.

 

(Jenny training Rachel in pipetting techniques.)

Every day during our visit we took a Tuk-Tuk to the University, which was quite a novel way to get to work! Once there we climbed the five flights of stairs to the lab and would begin another day of training and discussion.

(Our Tuk-Tuk driver waiting while Helen finds some change!)

 

(The Royal University of Phnom Penh (RUPP) – Faculty of Science.)

Even though the technicians in the molecular genetics lab at RUPP had a lot of previous training, it was important to make sure they could reproduce the techniques we had developed back in the RZSS Wildgenes Lab in Edinburgh, as these had not been used in the RUPP Lab before. Together we worked through protocols we had developed to extract DNA from elephant faecal samples collected out in the field.

 

(Chanrith loading a gel while Jenny and Chansorphea look on.)

Once the DNA is extracted it will be run through a panel of microsatellite genetic markers. These will provide us with data that will allow identification of different individuals in the remaining populations. This data will allow Fauna and Flora International (FFI), Worldwide Fund for Nature (WWF Cambodia) and the Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS) who jointly established and fund this project, to learn more about the movement and behaviour of elephant populations in this area. Ultimately this will be of great importance, informing future management decisions on the monitoring and protection of remaining population of around 600 Asian elephant in Cambodia.

We are now back in the RZSS WildGenes lab at Edinburgh Zoo and are holding weekly skype meetings with the RUPP team as they work through over 1000 samples of elephant dung – no mean feat!

I personally really enjoyed meeting all the lab staff in the molecular lab at RUPP, and look forward to continuing to work with them from here in the RZSS Conservation Department, Edinburgh.

(The Team - Back row L-R: Rachel Crouthers (WWF Cambodia), Jenny Kaden (Senior Lab Technician, RZSS WildGenes), Saveng Ith (Lab Manager, RUPP), Helen Senn (RZSS WildGenes Programme Manager), Chantha Nasak (FFI). Front row L-R: Chanrith Phoeurk (Senior Technician, RUPP), Chansorphea Srey (Technician, RUPP).)

 

All the best,

Jenny Kaden
Senior Lab Technician
RZSS WildGenes Laboratory