Using the opportunity of having our distinguished guest, prof. David Janz, we organized conservation medicine workshop at our Institute of Nature Conservation PAS in Krakow. Workshop “Conservation Medicine in the Anthropocene: Applications of Modern 21st Century Technologies to the Assessment of Wildlife Health” took place on 15th of May 2019. Our special guest led this event. The modern biological research laboratory has evolved dramatically in the past decade, and there are many new quantitative tools available to address this issue. Although these tools are being used successfully in human biomedical research, their application to the conservation of wild animal species is only just beginning.
Our Keynote Speakers (prof. David Janz, dr hab. Nuria Selva, prof. Djuro Huber, dr hab. Aleksandra Biedrzycka and dr Agnieszka Sergiel) introduced some of the tools: (1) measurement of hormones in non-traditional matrices (e.g., hair, urine, feces, saliva, blubber, scales, whole-body animals), (2) ‘omics’ techniques (e.g., transcriptomics, proteomics, metabolomics), (3) major histocompatibility complexes (MHC), and (4) stable isotopes. There are many emerging opportunities to apply such techniques to wildlife ecology, which may contribute significantly to ensuring the sustainability of populations, communities and biodiversity.
