Ep. 87 - Whale Tales: Unveiling Orca Family Mysteries Through Genetic Analysis with Dr. Isabella Reeves

Dive deep into the oceanic realms as Science 360 brings you this riveting episode. Join me, Tim Stephenson in an engaging conversation with Dr. Isabella Reeves, a pioneering researcher delving into the genetic fabric of orcas.

Discover how her groundbreaking analysis links orca pods worldwide to a common ancestry, unveiling the intricate history of these marine dynasties. Hear the story of Old Tom, an orca that assisted whalers 100 years ago.

This episode is your backstage pass to the fascinating world of orca genetics and how it connects to your classroom. Get ready for a whale of a time as science takes center stage.

Connect with Isabella at the Cetacean Research Centre, Southern Shark Ecology Group, College of Science & Engineering, Flinders University, Australia.

X: @bellaa_reeves
LinkedIn: Isabella Reeves
Email: [e-mail]

Episode Transcript

(00:00):
I think there's two types of peoplewhen you're at school. There's people that
know that what they want to dofrom the get go, and luckily,
I think in a way that's lucky, but also it can be like,
you know, you can be honedin a bit too much one that doesn't
know. But yeah, for sure, I think you know, I've always
been interested in this, and I'vetaken it from you know, just me
seeing dolphins, have been excited tolearning more into a stage that you know,

(00:22):
I was able to come come outwith something that is actually meaningful for
society and the community and for consummation, management of species and these sorts of
things. So and I mean there'ssomething as simple as the strawberry experiment actually
has a lot of implications and whatI do in the lab, so you
know, it's all there. It'sjust what the students are wanting and willing
to do with it. It's allpossible. I've been very lucky, like

(00:44):
I've done fieldwork in really remote places, and Iceland is an example of one
of them. But like I've said, I've done been able to do food
work in the tropics, the temperateregions, now the polar regions, so
you know, definitely, science cantake you on an adventure, and I
think that's something I like about itmost. And I think the amount of
interactions and the amount of people youget to connect to it is also something
that's so marvelous about it. Welcomeback to another episode of Science three sixty.

(01:08):
This is Tim Stevenson, your host, and on this episode I have
Isabella Reeves, a marine biologist specializingin marine mammals located in South Australia.
The research focus mostly on evolution andconservation, with particular focus on killer whales
and their genetics. It's a realworld science discussion about genetics and it leads

(01:33):
directly to what we do in ourclassrooms. This podcast is a proud member
of the Teach Better podcast Network,Better Today, Better Tomorrow, and the
podcast to Get you there. Exploremore podcasts at www dot Teach Better Podcastnetwork

(01:53):
dot com. Now let's get ontothe episode. Today we embark on a
journey into the depths of the ocean, exploring the mysterious world of orcas and
unraveling their family history. I hadthe incredible opportunity to sit down with a
remarkable scientist who's diving headfirst into thegenetic pool of Orca populations. I'm thrilled

(02:15):
to introduce our guests today, IsabellaReeves, soon to be doctor. Isabella
Reeves a researcher whose work is sheddinglight on the intricate web of relationships among
orcas worldwide. Her groundbreaking genetic analysisis not just about science, though,
It's about connecting the dots in theorca family tree and understanding how these majestic
creatures traverse the vast oceans. Today, we'll delve into the depths of Isabella's

(02:39):
research, exploring the genetic signatures thatbind orcapods across the globe. How do
these marine dynasties trace their roots?What secrets do their genes reveal about their
migration patterns and family ties. Butbefore we plunge into the genetic seascape,
let's take a moment to appreh theinvaluable work educators like you do every day.

(03:02):
You're the unsung heroes inspiring the nextgeneration of scientists. So grab your
coffee, find a comfortable spot,and let's embark on this scientific voyage together.
Get ready to be captivated by thewonders of Orca genetics and learn how
this research connects to your classroom.This is Science three sixty where we bridge

(03:23):
the gap between the research lab andyour lesson plans. Stay tuned for an
enriching conversation with Isabella Reeves. Thisis very different. Like I was in
minus well whether that felt like minusthirty according to the weather radars, and
then I came home and it wasactually thirty degrees and I was like,

(03:44):
oh, I can't this is alot having seen the sun for four weeks
and now I'm here. So youwent from a minus thirty to a plus
thirty. Yeah, that's a significanttemperature swing. Yeah, well it explains
why I've probably got sick pretty easilyand normally done so. Also it was
in the year, but yeah,definitely significant and has tossed me around a

(04:05):
bit. But that's okay. Itwas great. It was a great experience.
Well, it'd be great to heara little bit about it too,
I so, as I was sayingin my email, this podcast is predominantly
for teachers, but also students,but to just to help teachers pick up
something that relates to their content andtheir curriculum, but in some sort of

(04:28):
current and relevant fashion. It's anarea of research that's being done or some
applicable way that what we teach isactually happening in the in the world.
And I saw your the email Ioriginally saw, and the genetic research you're
doing with this iconic orca old Tomand how you've done this research to find

(04:49):
out how it's linked to or notto different pods around the world. It
be really cool thing to find alittle bit more about. So that's as
you speak think of as you're speakingto an audience of teachers, Okay,
especially high school teachers, you know. And it's quite apropos for me because
just today I started a unit inbiology with my grade nine science class,

(05:12):
and I was introducing them to theidea of DNA. What is your history
in high school in terms of whatdo you recall learning in high school about
DNA and was there something there thatkind of inspired you to get into the
research that you're doing today. Ilike, I've always been motivated to work
with dolphins, like that's been mybaseline ever since I was about five years

(05:34):
old. When I was like inhigh school, of course, I was
doing all the science topics, includingbiology, but I would say that genetics
was actually when I was a studentwasn't something that really pulled me. I
was like, Ah, that soundstoo hard and too difficult, and it's
really complicated, and I'm not reallysure if you know, that's something I'm
interested in. But I'm really interestedin the ecology of animals and how they

(05:57):
relate to each other, and youknow, all the adaptations and things that
they've evolved to combat things like climatechange, which was pressing. And I
it was kind of just by luckand by need, and at the time,
right, I wasn't necessarily someone thatwas super keen on genetics. But

(06:17):
as I've kind of gone more throughmy degree when I started university and things,
I've kind of was understanding that theyactually has a lot of power to
answer questions that we kind of answerin other ways. So it drew me
in from that side. I thinkusing it as a tool rather than a
necessarily a career. M hm,well, it is a tool. And

(06:38):
you would have learned some biology orsorry, some genetics when you were in
high school, right, there wouldhave been some exposure to inheritance back in
those days. Yes, definitely,I remember doing Punnett squares. Okay,
yeah, you know all that sortof stuff. I think we went up
to learning about I think it's abit different at least in Australia now that

(07:00):
they're starting to introduce like epigenomics andthis sort of stuff at a high school
level. But we definitely just learnedthe basics with DNA, like going through
the structure and the bases and whathappens if this happens, myosis, mitosis,
all that sort of jam. Itwasn't something I guess we'll focus on
biology at least when I went throughschool, was more focused on humans,

(07:25):
right, so that DMAIL obviously comesinto play with that, But in relation
to nature, it wasn't really exploredmuch. So when you're looking at things
like how a species may adapt toan environment, it wasn't something we're really
exposed to as of yet. Andthat's why I think it's just so cool
to have you come on here andjust draw some connections to these traditional things

(07:47):
like mitosis and myosis and Punnett squaresand let's find out what it is that
you can actually do with this knowledge. That's what I'm really interested in hearing
from you. And on top ofthat, you're doing it with this incredible
animal, the orcas you're tell usjust a little bit about the university you're

(08:09):
at and the department you're working in, and then of course the PhD degree
that you're working on. Sure.So I am based at Finnish University in
South Australia, so at the veryend of Australia basically it's just home and
then the Southern Ocean, and Iam enjoying my PHDM towards the end of

(08:30):
it, so I'm meant to besubmitting later next year. And it's based
on evolutionary genomics, so using DNAessentially to understand the evolution of killer whales.
So although that I focused on killerwhales, I do double in other
marine species as well, and itdoes lead me to working with prey for

(08:50):
instance, because they eat so much. It's actually quite a diverse set of
species I've ended up working with.And there's a particular story that you that
attracted me to this interview and ithad to do with this iconic orca named
Old Tom. What's the story thereand why the need for research on him?

(09:13):
So? Old Tom? Actually I'vegot a sticker on my water bottle.
Look at that? Yeah, greatvisual for a podcast. Yes,
So Australian killer ours we don't reallyknow much about them. And when you're
looking at the history of Australian killours, Old Tom and the killer whws
and Eden, which is a smalltown off New South Wales coast in the

(09:37):
south is kind of it. Andwhy it's so special is there was a
lot of journals that were recorded anda lot of first hand encounters and there
was a lot of story that werepassed on through generations that has led to
this fascination at least within Australia.And I think some marine mammal enthusiasts really
loved the story. But the reasonthat this group of killer whales was so

(10:01):
special was at least before my workstarted, at least from eighteen forty,
there started to be some records ofthis group of killer whales that actually used
to hunt alongside human whalers, whichthey actually helped get a balen whale essentially

(10:26):
for them to hunt. So whathappened was when there was balen whales or
balen whale, there was a bigwhale that has balen. So this includes
huntback whales, includes blue whales,it includes southern northern right whales, anything
that has baling. But in Australiaat that time, the most prominent species
was humpback whales and southern right whalesalong that coast. So when the killer

(10:46):
whales actually spotted or heard more likelya balen whale, and normally it was
a humpback whale because they were insuch large numbers, they would actually start
rounding up this walded movie in closerto the bay, and then part of
the group would then actually go inand alert the whalers. And that sounds

(11:07):
like almost impossible, right, butit's been well recorded that the killer whales,
at least two of them, oldTom was included in this, would
actually tail slap, so they'd slaptheir tail against the water, and all
of a sudden a whaler would seeand they'd rang the bell, and the
whalers would then roll out in thesereally dingy boats that didn't look like they

(11:30):
should make it in much weather,and most of the time they fell out
very often, and then the killerwhales would lead them to where their other
family members are. So at thispoint the killer whales had started hurting and
harassing the whale and kind of tiringit out a bit. So the interesting
thing is, up until actually twentynineteen, killer whiles were not known besides

(11:54):
when in Eden with the help ofhumans to actually hunt and kill adult balena,
particularly humpbacks. Humpbacks have some bigpecks with some barnacles and then can
give you a nice nasty whack ifyou get hit. So they weren't too
keen on this idea, so theyreally needed the humans to actually harpoon this
humpback whale so it would die andthey would then put this carp They would

(12:20):
put the carcass on a boy overnightthat was floating, and the killer whales
would eat the tongue through the throatregion and then the whalers would come back
and then collect the carcass. Sothere was one animal in particular that was
actually quite involved in this old Tomor we call him Tom, and he
was said he was a bit cheekyfrom records, and he used to actually

(12:43):
pull sometimes the bow line at thefront of the boat with when the whalers
were rolling out to help speed themalong in the water, which is remarked,
Yeah, and even with the harpoonline. Once I went into the
humpback whales, sometimes he would grabonto it well, was said to to
grab onto it and actually shove itin deeper into the whale, and when
you see his skeleton in the museum, there is evidence that there is this

(13:07):
potential truth wear pattern where there waslike these really weird wear pattern that does
suggest perhaps this was from this rope, although it could obviously be from different
Perhaps he had some weird feeding behaviorthat we don't know about, but it
does link up with the traditional stories. And of course at about nineteen thirty,

(13:30):
the whaling numbers there was a lotof offshore whaling pressure pressure and so
the whales had gone down. Thecommunity was struggling an old time, and
then killer wheale numbers were also goingdown. So it was really important that
I mentioned that without the killer whales, the whalers were actually having a really
hard time getting whales. So thefact that the killer whales had already heard

(13:52):
it and harassed and whiled down thewhale, the whalers wouldn't have been able
to do that. They were innine meter open boats, which quite often
they fell out of anyways, soto do that without this partnership I think
would have almost been impossible at thistime. But around nineteen thirty Old Tom
actually washed up dead, which wasterrible. When he was the last of

(14:13):
his group to be seen in Eden, and even today we really rarely see
any killer whales in that region.But it brought about this question, and
like I said, or my backgroundsin the evolution, particularly my phhd's focused
on evolution of killer whales, andwe had wondered if we could find out

(14:35):
where this group was from and ifthey still exist today, because obviously it's
such a special relationship that's been seennowhere else in the world, and if
we're able to find some sort ofdescendants perhaps I think it would be a
nice touch to the story. Andthere's actually a local museum in the area,
Eden Killer Whale Museum, where Tom'sskeleton's actually found today, and it's

(14:58):
such an amazing place. If you'reever in that region, please go.
But it's would give it like kindof a round story. And I've been
interested in old Tom as soon asI heard about him, of course.
But I think we'll finally at astage where we're able to combine my skills
with people's skills that I knew aswell, Like we had help from all

(15:18):
over the world to see if wecould work this out ourselves. See,
I really want to play up onthis idea that you you're doing this really
cool research on a scientific topic thatas a high school teacher you kind of
potentially can spawn out of what youfirst hear about. But what do you
do with the knowledge of biology?What do you do with knowledge of DNA?

(15:43):
Does it take you anywhere? Isthere is there a career? Is
there is there travel involved? Andthen it turns out that you're sort of
the embodiment of all of those things. You know, you've been all over
the world. Just what was themost recent trip you were involved with to
Norway? What was going on withoutresearch? So I actually one of my
supervisors is based at the University ofOslo, Associate Perfected Associate Professor Andrew Foote,

(16:08):
and I was joining actually one ofmy colleagues, Eve joor Daying,
that runs the Norwegian Orchat survey,and I was up there trying to or
had her winter field season, soit was quite difficult conditions into when I'm
used to back home in Australia andI just had a tropical field season,
so I was quite literally in shortsand this field season, the weather radar

(16:30):
said it felt like negative thirty.I was losing sensitivity in my fingers and
sometimes I could kill them. AndI couldn't feel my feet for most of
the day, and I was gettingI was super tired all the time because
the daylight was like gone at twopm, weather windows were really short,
the wind was insane, the haillike I worked through hale, which I've

(16:52):
never done before. I've worked throughheat waves, not through hail. The
conditions could be tricky. There wasa lot of boat traffic. In saying
all of this though, it wasmaybe one of the most challenging field seasons
I've had, but definitely the mostrewarding. I feel like I learned so
much. I mean, I've seenhundreds of killer whales now, but I

(17:12):
still learn something every time I mightsee. And one of the focuses of
Eve's work is actually collecting DNA samples, so we use or over there they
use an air rifle which collects abit of blubber and a bit of skin,
so the blubber is the fat ofthe whale. They collect about a

(17:34):
little finger sized amount of skin andthat can be used for all types of
analysis, and this includes genetics,in which you can use for things like
looking at how many populations there are, the age of the animal, how
many toxins are in the animal,what the animals eating, the relationships to
other animal groups. You can lookuse it as a sample to look back

(17:56):
in time. Even you can lookat if there's any inbreeding in the population,
so their health in general as well. But she's been running that for
about ten years, and I wasreally excited to get an invite because I
hadn't been in a climate like thatbefore. And like I said, and
every time I go somewhere different,I always learned something new and new field

(18:17):
work skills, and that includes dealingwith like frozen ropes and stuff, which
I've definitely never dealt with before.But yeah, I was up there helping
and doing that as well as collectingthings like photo ID. So it's really
important that we know who the animalsare that we're getting samples of, because
without that, it doesn't really meanmuch, right If we don't know that
this is this is made up butlike Larry, for instance, then we

(18:41):
don't know what that sample actually means. And if we don't know if that's
Larry, we don't know who Larry'srelated to if we get other samples.
So it's actually really important to haveall these photos to compare to back in
time, and Eve's got a verygreat data set where she's been doing it
for at least ten years now.Oh, I think that was her elevance
field season actually, But there's alsoa historic catalog that they've been able to

(19:03):
use, so she still sees animalsback from the eighties and nineties in Norway
that have actually moved around Norway.So it's super important not only for looking
at like traditional ecology questions, butusing it for genetics as well. Sorry,
see what is that on oncology?Is that what you're the type of
study that you're talking about? Whatis that word you're using? Oh?
Call it no? Sorry, ecologyecology. Yeah, I'm sorry, because

(19:29):
I think oncology isn't the study ofcancer. Well, I mean they do,
that's some people do look at cancerin miles, so it's not.
Yeah, of course, But whata great adventure that you've been able to
travel around the world and see allthese things, and what great experiences to
be in those sort of weather situations. I mean, this is the potential
of sticking with science out of thehigh school level. You went through a

(19:51):
probably an undergrad degree and then developedthis interest even further. And now you're
sort of hooked, aren't you.You sort of hooked in this and you
really love but you said you hadan early love of dolphins, which is
part of the cetacean family anyway,so it's all isn't Isn't the killer whale
related to the dolphin? Yes,so killer whales are actually the largest type

(20:14):
of dolphin. So actually, thisis a fun fact that I love telling
people. So all dolphins are whales, but not all whales are dolphins.
So the way that cetaceans work isthat basically they're all whales, and then
you've got balaning whales, and thenyou've got tooth whales, and tooth whales
are actually dolphins. So it's kindof always I think, a cool fact

(20:36):
to spit out to people and theit's like, oh what, I'm like,
yeah, it's pretty cool. Butyeah, they're one. They're in
a family with things like pilot whalesand sperm whales, things that you know,
say the word whale, but they'renot necessarily what we consider whale if
we're looking at a taxonomic level.But yeah, they're a pretty special dolphin.

(20:56):
I mean, they rule the sea. They've got cold traditions, they've
got female lead societies. They're superadaptable to the environment, which has kind
of made them this ultimate apex predator, meaning there's super important for the health
of oceans. So they're actually considereda keystone species in all their ecosystems,
and a keystone species is something thathas a high impact on the ecosystem.

(21:19):
So if they were removed, somethingwould happen, or if there's a lot
of pressure. For example, there'sa famous example of killer whales in the
northern Hemisphere where they overpredated on seaotters and that actually led to a cash
or trific cascade as we call them, where the sea olders are actually important
because they were eating urchins that wereeating kelp essentially, and because there's no

(21:45):
sea olders or the kelp plentt andthe sea urchins just exploded again. So
they're actually something that has quite highimpact in the environment, which is made
of them really the ultimate species tostudy. And I've been super lucky that
I've been put in this position becausethere's not many people in the world that
can say they work with killer whales. No, unless you work at a

(22:07):
marine land or something like that,which is you're seeing less and less of
that around the world, really,aren't you, which is a good thing.
The whole idea of the otters.Interestingly, I had a man by
the name of Scott o'hatchik on mypodcast. He's somebody who does research with
Ocean Wise, which is I thinkthey're pretty much a global organization, and
he's also doing work around the sea, around the kelp and he told the

(22:32):
same story about the otters in thatepisode. Now, mind you, he
didn't say that it was the orchardsof the killer whales. He referred to
the just the hunting. We huntedto almost extinction the order for their fur.
But you're saying that actually the killerwhale was also involved in that process.

(22:56):
Yeah, it was definitely. Imean, it may have been a
different location he was talking about.I'm not sure particularly, but yeah,
there was definitely a situation in allthe hemisphere where killer whales were the ones
that were linked. And sometimes,you know, they get a bit excited
about this prey and they start thefat kind of continues and they start targeting

(23:17):
something a bit weird, like,for instance, as in South Africa.
At the moment, they're having alot of issues with the killer whis predating
on livers and it's just kind ofstarted happening there all of a sudden from
twenty fifteen. And there was aday this year where they killed seventeen bronze
whalers no sorry, yeah, bronzewhalers or seven girls, I can't remember
now for their livers. And thatwas only done by two killer whales.

(23:41):
So having that sort of impact onanother large predator and an environment is obviously
quite significant and can have some trophiclevel effects that we kind of really need
to understand and interpret and understanding howkiller whale was actually you know, when
you're stepping back and looking at howthey've evolved and you know, what I
look like today and why they looklike the way that they do and why

(24:02):
they act the way that they do, actually give us a lot of insight
to that behavior. Yeah, likethis the idea that they decided they're going
to overpredate the otter or they're goingto go out this particular animal in South
you say South Africa. These arelearned behaviors, he said, since twenty
fifteen, so that they're obviously capableof learning new behaviors, finding new food

(24:27):
sources. There was also in thenews recently that over in the Mediterranean,
these the killer whales going after boatsand they're trying to figure out is this
aggression, is this play? Whatexactly is going on with But that also
seems to be a learned behavior,you know, I guess that's what happens

(24:48):
when you have a smart animal.They're going to learn new things. And
they're a very smart element, aren'tthey. They're very very intelligent. Yeah,
I mean they're super intelligent. Ifyou've seen some of the wife watching
in the Antarctic region, like it'squite incredible what they've been learning to do.
I'm actually working on a project atthe moment where we're trying to understand
why they predate on certain organs onanimals but leave the others. So Old

(25:11):
Tom kind of comes back into thiswith the tongue, like why did they
prefer the tongue? They had thewhole carcass, but they went for the
tongue, and like they didn't haveto do much work. I was already
dead that they could have taken someblubber and blubber's hiring calories, Like why
didn't they do that? Shark liveris one of them. Swordfish brain,
sunfish in test sins, all thisreally weird stuff that we're trying to understand.

(25:33):
Why are they targeting this because it'sso specialized. There has to be
some benefit to them for targeting this, And the question is like, we're
trying to work out what all ofthese sorts of weird tissues have in common,
because it's like I've been the poorpostman's every time he comes in,
he's like, oh, what isit today? I actually just had a
sunfish delivered, so I've kind ofcut that up soon. So yeah,

(25:57):
it's being these cultural transmissions of behaviorsis definitely something that applies to killer whales,
and I think that's kind of whatmakes them one of the ultimate predators
in the ocean, is that theyare able to learn, retain, and
share with the next generation. AndI think, you know, as humans,
that's something we've been able to doand it's probably why we've dominated on

(26:18):
land as well. And it comesback again to the story with Tom and
even the relationship with the indigenous whalersat the time, which was something that
was only being alerted of now becauseof the way oral history works, right,
it's kind of the same thing thatthey're transmitting their knowledge into the next

(26:40):
generation and then something happens again.But yeah, it's definitely these cultural fads
or not even they're not even necessarilynew behaviors. It's that that they've been
able to retain a behavior perhaps andit's just the first time we're seeing it.
We've actually just had confirmation, forinstance, that this their predation of
the liver of sharks, Like we'vejust had the case in Australia where they've

(27:02):
done it for a white shark,and I suspected that it wasn't just in
South Africa, and it happens thatwe actually have confirmation now that it was
from a killer whale that's happened offsomewhere where I live. So I just
think, you know, as theenvironment's changing and the opportunities are coming differently,
or maybe they're being playful and curiousthat we definitely have instances where they're

(27:22):
quite curious without our boat, butthey're never aggressive or anything towards us.
I think they're just aware, andlike when you're even walking across the deck
and you're making eye contact with them, they're like watching you as you you
know, you're moving and you're watchingthem as you're moving, and you can
definitely tell that they've got a lotgoing on in there. M And in
the region of the world where Ilive, Pacific Northwest, the Northern resident

(27:48):
Wales, they seem to just focuson salmon and herring. In fact,
they live in an area that's abundantwith dolphins, a couple of different species
of dolphins. There's lots of ordersseals, sea lions, humpbacks, but
they don't interact with them at all, or they may interact, but they
don't certainly hunt them. But theremust be then something about that population that

(28:12):
says, I maybe its ease.It's an easier food source. It's easier
to grab the salmon or the herringthan to chase after a seal or a
dolphin. Yeah, so sorry.So the Southern residents, I think are
kind of an extreme case example.So killer whales have evolved very differently in
all different places around the world,Like the ones we have in Australia.

(28:36):
They're considered generalists and they can eatanything like from blue whales down to bluefin
tuna. We've seen them killing sharks, We've seen them eating other species of
dolphins. They're all kind of allover the place, and when we look
at these high latitude populations, theyseem to kind of have more specialized diets.
And I think that's kind of whatmakes killer whale so interesting is that

(28:57):
they've evolved in so many different waysacross the globe, hence my PhD.
But the Southern residents, for instance, like them only basically having one food
source, which was the chinook salmon, right, So that's something that's a
popular fisheries item as well, Sothey're competing against for this one single food

(29:19):
source. There's not many of them, so I think from July there was
seventy four. The count was they'reconsidered endangered, so the small population size
means that you know, they're notbreeding with a whole lot in their gene
pool. And killer whales are kindof really funny. They can be quite

(29:41):
picky, I think in all cases, but picky who they interact with,
picky who they mate with. Soin this case the Kilweles, the Southern
residents, they're quite isolated, sothey won't mate with the transients that come
through, which is another type theyeat. The marine mammals, they actually
actively avoid each other, and there'sin one case or at least one case
that I know of where one ofthem's tried to ram the other one,

(30:04):
So they really don't want to hangout with each other. So that means
when they're breeding, there's a smallgene pool, and that means there's likely
to be inbreeding in things. Andthey actually did a study in the Southern
resident population and I saw that therewas like one male that was the predominant
father most of the animals in thatpopulation. And of course, when you're
looking at that from a genetics perspective, that's not good. You know,

(30:27):
diseases and things that are coming fromthis one male. That means that most
of the population will be combating that. So they actually found that there was
a recent study this year by MartiPlottos actually that was looking at the effect
of inbreeding depression. It's called andbasically it just means that the there's a

(30:51):
reduction due to the inbreeding that it'sactually affecting the health of the population and
it's not necessarily something they can recoverfrom. And sometimes once she's get stuck
in it, all populations get stuckin this vortex. It's kind of that
they go through and they don't comeout at the other end, which is
unfortunate. But when we're looking atthis idea of inbreeding, of course,

(31:12):
when you've got a small pool anddiseases are coming up, if the whole
population is suddenly going to be affectedby that, that means that you might
not get as many carves within thenext few years. It means, you
know, they might start getting reallyweird deformities, it means that they might
not be living as long because theymight get other genetic diseases that reduce the

(31:32):
age of them. So it's veryproblematic with these small populations, and I
actually think not that we had thedata to support this, but when we're
going back to Old tom for instance, he was most similar to New Zealand
killer whales around the world, buthe wasn't very similar, so it was

(31:57):
kind of an ancestral similarity that hehad. But he also was similar to
populations in the world, like theresident populations that are known for having these
small population size that are in breadthat are now facing extinction. So another
example of this would be Scotland forexample. And I actually think that it's

(32:23):
possible that the killer whales of Eden. When we're looking there's some photos taken
of them and actually quite deformed.And I actually think that there's a possibility
that maybe inbreeding was something that struckthem as well, which is maybe why
we didn't see any of them afterTom, as well as probably a multitude
of other factors like the fact thatthere was no whales and killer whales follow
their food. But I don't Yeah, I suspect that the killer whales of

(32:45):
Eden went actually ones that were healthy, and so is it possible that Tom
was the the most dominant father ofmost of the population. I mean,
it's definitely possible, but it's kindof hard to say how that family structure
was. We don't know. Somethingthat was a bit I guess not problematic,

(33:10):
but when we're looking at killer whalestoday, it kind of doesn't make
sense. So the indigenous people,the Thower people, had a really special
connection with these killer whales, andthey believe that when a killer whale passed
that they were actually oh sorry,not want to kill our pass where and
a thorough member passed from their mob, that they were actually recarnated into these
killer whales, and then they werenamed after the person that had just passed.

(33:36):
So whether they were alive or whetheror they were a killer whale,
they were considered part of the samemob. But that means quite often that
it was the men that they werebeing named after in that time, and
that means a lot of the killerwhales and had male names like Jack and
Cooper and Tom. Things we weren'table to, you know, they weren't

(33:59):
aware that male kilo whales and femalekiller whales had different sized dorsal fins,
and you know, if you lookedon their bellies, if they showed you
their bellies, they look different fromtheir genitalio perspective. So it's kind of
hard to say what Tom's family structureactually was and where he sat in the
pod. He was definitely a prominentmale though, because he was quite involved

(34:20):
in the hunts, and that's notsomething we think that's typical of males today,
Like quite often they look pretty,they're standing back, they're waiting for
their females to come in taketure Itrip the animal part and they pressure.
Basically they've got these ginormous pectoral finsthat just like oval disc which aren't very
helpful in predations, where if you'relooking at a female, they've got more

(34:40):
of like a surfboard fin they cancut through those waves that bit quicker.
You've also got the matriarchs that thenstep in and pay a giant role in
these predations, helping the young learnas well. You can see that in
some instances over the world. Soyeah, it is possible that Tom did

(35:00):
play a prominent role as perhaps afather figure. I mean, I do
think he was quite old, andthe age of him is something I would
like to put money in if moneyever came, of course, but they
do. You know, there's probablysome solid evidence that he could have been,
you know, around the fifty yearold mark, and that's quite old
for a male kill like females typicallylive longer because they do have more of

(35:22):
an active role after they go throughmenopause in a pod, whereas the male
just kind of has an endpoint whathe was doing. But yeah, it's
kind of hard to say, butit's kind of nice that we don't know
everything. I think about these killerwhales in Eden. It kind of,
I don't know, preserves the storya bit. And I think in a
way it was such a special connection. I'm not sure if where if you

(35:45):
know, we should know everything aboutthis connection they had, but the people
in the Wales. You think it'ssomething that should just sort of remain somewhat
of a mystery that, you know, what, is it our rate to
know everything that kind of idea.Yeah, I think, you know,
it's not our right to know absolutelyeverything. And I also think the way

(36:06):
that colonization happened in Australia, Sosomething that I found out through my research
was that this relationship actually started priorto white whaling, which is not something
that had been recorded yet. Anda lot of this is due to the
fact that in Australia, a lotof Indigenous history has been put this aside,
right because it hasn't been written toin a journal or it hasn't been

(36:28):
printed somewhere, whereas the way thatthey were communicating was through oral history and
dreamtime stories and not acknowledging that actuallygives us. It pushes us back in
terms of what we understand as ascientist, because we're very limited in our
ways into understanding like a lot ofIndigenous people in Australia, for instance,
have had a giant role in understandingfire ecology, like when we should burn

(36:49):
things who have bush fires later onand all this sort of stuff. So
I think that you know, beingmore aware that this relationship started prior to
white whaling, and it would havebeen ongoing for some time to get to
that point where you know, therewas that relationship of trust and the fact
that you know, we kind ofbecause of how Australia was colonized, a

(37:12):
lot of that the language has beenlost and a lot of the information wouldn't
have been all put forward to thenext generations based on how things transpired in
that time era, which was terrible. Means yeah, I think, you
know, it's kind of a bittersweetthat we don't know everything, and I
wanted to find out as much aswe could obviously, and the main thing

(37:34):
being that you know, it startedprior to white whaling. I think that's
one of the best outcomes actually fromthis paper is that we've been able to
acknowledge it that indigenous presence and acknowledgethat relationship was always something that came from
them rather than the white people thathad come in to the time. But
I also think, you know,acknowledging that after tom went that the population

(38:00):
looks like it went extinct is againsomething that I guess highlights the fact that
we might not know everything, likethere's a lot of hypotheses in to why
he might have gotten extinct. I'vegot my own, but their locals also
have their own. There was,you know, some suggestion that there was

(38:22):
a few acts of mistrust between thewhite whalers and the whales, and they
thought that maybe drove the whales outor the Fower people, which is a
local mob in the area that actuallystarted leading the base. So they thought
maybe that had something to do withit. But yeah, I think to
a point, it's kind of nicewe don't know everything about it. I
think it was whatever it was,I don't think we would have been able
to understand it to that extent today. Like I just if we didn't have

(38:44):
the images that we have, I'mnot sure as many people would believe the
story that you know that actually doso, yeah, m hm, I
actually love that that you know.Here you are studying to a teen a
PhD degree, and oftentimes in highschool. The thought is that science is

(39:04):
the ultimate purveyor of all knowledge thatwe need to know everything. Science is
for the smart people who understand itall, and here you are saying,
no, it's good, it's somewhatbittersweet that we just don't know and I
love that because it shows you thatwe don't need to know everything, and
that science does not have all theanswers. And on top of that,

(39:27):
people in the scientific fields, suchas yourself, recognize that sometimes it's just
better that we don't know. Ilike that. I think it's a really
cool thing. I mean, isn'tit so sad the relationship between the colonizers
and the indigenous people. It's thesame in Canada, This is the same
all over the world, these horriblestories of negative interactions. I think something

(39:52):
might though that during that white rilingera is that and I think it's kind
of unusual for the time, especiallyin Australia, and we still have like
Ben Boyd was bringing slavers from thePacific, not slavers, sorry, bringing
in slaves from the Pacific. Stillat that point that the Thower people were
actually paid by the white whalers,and I actually think that's, you know,

(40:15):
something that wouldn't have been the samein other parts of the world.
So I think it was a clearrecognition that they acknowledged that they not only
needed them, but they had theskills that they needed to make that interesting
successful at that time. Mm hmm, Well, it's like the colonizers around
this area benefited from the First Nationspeople in helping them find otters and helping

(40:37):
them find good timber for building shipsand but the but the relationship was negative
in that the power was one sidedand the ultimate control felled the person with
kind of like the biggest gun unfortunately. And then of course the issues around
small parks and yeah, there's it'sjust But what's neat about it is I

(41:01):
think in the last few years,last decade or so, we're seeing more
and more education in high schools andprobably everywhere about our relationship over the course
of the last few hundred years,and we're doing what we can to reconcile.
And this is I think this isa global push, isn't it Even
in Australia. Do you see hereabout truth and reconciliation. Yeah, for

(41:23):
sure. I think that's something manypeople are trying to focus on now and
also trying to include Indigenous voice whenthere's the potential too like this, I
wanted to make sure. I waslike, if I do this, I
want an Indigenous voice in this becauseit's a platform for the story to be
retold in a different light compared tothe white marketers that have written about it

(41:45):
before, which was super important tome. I felt like, you know,
this wasn't my story to tell.I know I can contribute to the
science of the story, but Ican't provide the background that's necessary. And
I acknowledged that. And when Iwent to the Fower Order Order Stephen Holmes,
I just said that to him.I said, look like, I
know what I can do, butthis isn't my story, and I want

(42:05):
you to have the first word inthe story, like this isn't I admire
the story and I think it's brilliant, but again, it's not my story
to tell. I think that's socool because these are focus areas in our
school. That's for sure, certainlyin our region of the world. But
it's such a good example that you'regiving that you'll take your academic ability,

(42:29):
but you won't lose sight of yourplace in the hierarchy of knowledge. You
know that there's others who have aspectsthat you just don't have, and that's
something we're trying to get across toour students here, and you're sort of
living proof of that. The otherthing I was kind of curious about was
there's a great picture of you analyzingone of the teeth from Tom. And

(42:53):
then you also mentioned that you takethese finger sized samples of blubber using air
gun, right, and you pullit back and then you can do all
this DNA analysis. I'm just curious, when you get that tooth or when
you get that piece of blobber,how do you analyze the DNA? Yeah,
great, great question. So forAustralia we use because I'll explain it

(43:16):
in our context, so back homeor here, we use a modified crossbow.
So basically there's the dart flies outand we collect this little bit of
skin and then we preserve an ethanol. And so I've been getting the DNA
from those for quite some time andthat was like a bank that I've been
collecting. But with Tom, we'reactually really nervous that it wasn't going to

(43:37):
work because Tom, like teeth,the DNA is meant if there is any
it's meant to be best preserved inthe polp cavity, which is kind of
in the middle of the tooth.And the thing with Australia is is hot
a lot, so that means degregationsa lot. Tom was kind of a
special waye right, so that localsloved him. There's if you look,

(43:59):
you can find pictures from like theearly nineteen hundreds of people like children are
standing with him when he was ina shed. So he for the first
nine years of his skeletal life,he wasn't actually in a museum or in
a temperature controlled facility. And somethingwas worried about was like, a we
actually going to be able to getDNA from him in the first place,

(44:22):
because it's not only we're looking likein whether they've been able to get Neanderthal
remains in perma frost or you know, the same as mammoth tuss like they've
been able to do that because thecold environments are helping with preserving the DNA.
But back here, first of all, is it possible? So I
was pretty nervous the whole time.We're just trying our best, and we

(44:43):
actually did use the same techniques thatthey used with these million year old mammoths
and these Neanderthals to try to giveit the best shot of actually extracting the
DNA. But for tom what wedid was I randomly chose a tooth to
drill, So I could have justgot unlucky and chose the wrong tooth,
but we drew it into it andit basically gives you a fine powder.

(45:05):
And just for context sake, ittook me eight hours to get one gram
from him, so I had avery sore neck and back that day,
but I did it, and thenhe was actually a very well traveled way
on the end. So I actuallytook that last year that saxample Upton away
and I did our lab work inthis really fancy DNA facility. It's called

(45:27):
an ancient DNA lab facility, andyou basically have to dress up from someone
from like et like you're in allthe clothes and the hazmat suits, got
masks and hairnets and shoes and whateverthat have been contaminated free, and you're
only allowed to go in there ifyou haven't been in other rooms and whatnot.
So we did the DNA extraction andthen we actually wanted to see if
there was any DNA in there,and we found out yep, there is

(45:50):
DNA in there, which is superhelpful. But what we actually wanted to
make sure that we got is wewanted to make sure we had DNA that
was going to be useful in tellingus about his origin. And his fate.
So when we look at using DNAfor types of ecological studies, what
we're actually looking for is similarities anddifferences between individuals, and the differences are

(46:15):
actually markers, and the markers weuse are called snips, which some people
might be familiar with with the wholeCOVID situation, But these genetic markers are
what we're actually using to compare howdifferent or how similar individuals or species are
to each other. So I usedTom's genetic information that we're able to get.

(46:36):
We weren't able to get a lot, but we were able to get
enough to compare him to a wholeheap of other Australian and New Zealand killer
whales, and he actually had somesimilarities for sure with other killer whales today,
with modern killer whales, but hedidn't have a lot. So it
kind of suggested that his DNA,because it wasn't in other killer whales today

(47:00):
that hit his lineage, had goneextinct because he didn't share any of the
information with other killer whales today,and we would expect that if he had,
then we'd find the DNA in otherkiller whales at least parts of the
segments. But it kind of suggestedthat the historic killer whales that he represented

(47:20):
have gone from Australia, and it'skind of not surprising. I think in
Australia today we've had a lot ofchanges in relation to killer whales, Like
only really within the last ten tofifteen years has been in killer whales here,
and that's been followed by species recoveryfrom other things like huntback whales,
for instance, on the west coastof all of a sudden, now there's
a population that comes up every winteron the Northwest in the tropics and they

(47:44):
hren't hunt back whale carbs, sothey follow their food. But yeah,
we're really and it comes back toall my genomics work. We're really just
looking at the similarities and differences betweenindividual DNA sequences to understand what that means
in terms of diversity. So andyou can look at all sorts of things

(48:05):
like you can look at Basically,what I was doing was like an a
very complicated ancestry dot Com test essentially, so looking at who's what and who
he's most related to and who heisn't related to. And like I mentioned
before, he seemed most similar toNew Zealand and other killer whales from the
North Pacific and North Atlantic, buthe was still not very similar at all

(48:28):
to the point that he it lookedlike it was an ancestral connection rather than
a modern day connection. But thatgoes back to the formation of all my
work, and that's what I'm doing. So I'm using all sorts of things
to look at, you know,how morphological patterns have evolved. I'm looking
at how again, I'm actually lookingin modern Australian killer whales now at the

(48:49):
moment I'm currently doing this work,looking at the type, how much DNA
they have from other populations and howthat's actually affected their ecology today. So
we have example, it looks likewe have too populate. Well, we
have two populations in Australia that weknow of on the north and southwest of
Western Australia, and we suspect thatthey're actually most closely related to each other.

(49:12):
But the thing is is that wehave a tropical population and then we
have a temperate population in offshore waters, and we're like, well, what's
gone on there for them to beso different? And it kind of looks
like when you're going back in time, you start pulling out this information from
their genetics and looking at how they'veinherited information and who's given what to who,
and you're kind of starting to see, ah, who they've made it
within the past is actually having agiant influence into their ecology today, which

(49:36):
I think is kind of where Isee genetics as a tool rather than being
a geneticist per se. Do youknow that experiment you do where you extract
DNA from strawberries. It's a veryclassic high school lab. You use some
ethanol, you use some salt tobreak down the membrane, some salt to
separate the polar layers. Like inthe end, you end up with this

(50:00):
little clump of DNA. It lookssort of like a cotton ball that's soaked
in mush. Is there anything similarto that classic junior science experiment to what
you're doing? Yep. So whenI'm in the lab and I use it
for the killer whales that we havetoday, like not so much, Tom
because that was a very special procedurethat cost a lot of money. But

(50:22):
when I'm doing like looking at killerwhales that we have here today, I
basically do a very fancy version ofthat. So we use salt and we
use a detergent to an extent that'snot a detergent, but that the same
properties as a detergent to actually extractthe DNA. So as much as you
know the strawberry experiment at the time, kids might be doing, well,

(50:45):
how is the ever gonna you know, apply to something again, But I'm
actually using it. It's the sameprocedure. It's just you know, been
a bit modified to get the bestoutcome for what we need to do.
But you know, I don't thinkit's as far fetched as from what we
do in the real world as ascientist anyways, And I think, you
know, actually understanding that you're ableto do that and extract DNA from an

(51:07):
organism is actually quite special. Ithink one of the coolest things about my
work is that when I actually extractDNA, I can't see any of it.
I just like, I hope there'sDNA in this while so like because
it has no color of course,So yeah, it's I guess a little
bit In times you're just crossing yourfingers to make sure you know you've definitely

(51:27):
extracted DNA. You don't know untillater on, well what would be this
step after? Like, you know, once I've got that mass in my
in my test tube, what wouldbe the next thing that I would do
with it? If I was ina lab with the appropriate equipment. Yeah,
So the next thing you'd want todo is you basically want to give
it a name tag, which soundsweird, but you'd want to tag the

(51:52):
specimen to be like, hey,this is specimen one. So we have
primers and things which are essentially justlike a like a molecular sticker that gets
chucked on this this organism, andthen we put them all together into this
one vile essentially, but they've allbeen labeled by that point, so we
know who's who, and we've recordeddown the label system, and then it

(52:15):
gets sent to a sequencer which willthen sequence the DNA and then code it.
So you've got then got information fromsequences that have the a's, the
t's, Jesus c's, and thecombination of all of those. And then
after you get to that point,that's when you can start looking at the
similarities and differences between killowles or betweenstrawberries or whatever you're looking at. Is

(52:37):
it a like the sequencer? Isthat a specialized machine that you just put
it in one end and it spitsout the results in the other end.
Yeah, there's I mean, there'sa bit of our boot to it,
but yeah, essentially you fill itin after you've done what you needed to
do with the samples to get themup to that point, and then it
would just spit out in the informationand then you have that information. But

(52:58):
it can take along, like whenyou're at looking at the fliles, like
the stuff I'm doing now, I'mdealing with terrorbytes of data and it can
take a long time to actually seea result. But yeah, that's the
sequencing stage probably is the least complicatedbit out of all of it. I
think the probably hardest stage is inthe middle where you're trying to put the
molecular stickers onto the organisms and you'retrying to make sure you don't do crosson

(53:22):
tamination or like you're making sure you'vegot the record of everything so when you
spit out the other end, youcan decode it and be like, yep,
I know one was this organism,so now I have all that information
for that organism, et cetera.Mm hmm. The way the sequencer machine
that you're using, would it havebeen come would it have come out of

(53:44):
the You go back to the ninetieswhen they set out to sequence the human
genome and by two thousand and threethey did it, and it was a
monumental breakthrough to decode the three pointtwo billion letters of code and the human
DNA. Is that the strategies developedin the Hugo project, did they spawn

(54:05):
the machines you're using today? Yeah, So without all the work done in
human genetics and genomics, I wouldn'tbe able to do the work I do
today. It's really the basis ofwhat we do and what we've done in
humans. There's always a cascatting effectback to other species. So like,
for instance, I'm now using thewhole genomes, so all the information from

(54:25):
these killer whales, but even likethree years ago that didn't seem plausible.
So we are just continuously building on, you know, getting this information and
making sure it's more like cost effectiveas well, because people have a lot
more money than we do, islike marine biologists trying to do this stuff.
So no, it's definitely know whatwe learned from humans is what we

(54:50):
apply to all studies systems, andI think, for instance, like I
in killer whales, in a lotof way are quite similar, Like we
have similar they have similar age links, they have you know, big genomes,
a lot of information to deal with. They undergo similar types of things
in terms of colonization, what youknow humans have done. They've done in
the oceans and they're actually the secondmost widely spread species, humans being the

(55:14):
first one. So like in alot of ways, they're actually quite similar
to how we've evolved as a species. Do they have any sort of an
epigenetics because this is what's sort ofcoming out now with humans is what does
control aging? Is it the genesor is the epigenes? Is that evident
in Wales as well? I meanthere's just epigenomics is something they're definitely starting

(55:37):
to look at now, and it'ssomething that's becoming more and more. Not
common yet, but you know,more and more people are starting to cut.
It's definitely something I want to godown at some stage. But the
way that they're aging, for instancein Wales, is they're looking at you
know, like they say, whenyou like cut a tree and it has

(55:59):
rings, you can count the ringsto get a rough age at the tree
or whatever. It's kind of ina way similar with the aging. Obviously
you can't count physical rings, butthe DNA goes through this process called methylation,
and essentially the more methylation, thatolder the animal is. And there's
a way of counting or using aclock to actually estimate it. From there,

(56:21):
the only thing is right is thatit's important again coming back when I
was talking about photo ID is actuallyhaving that information there because you might be
able to use a control for instance, so you might know, Okay,
so this animal was you know,she has a calf, so that means
she's at least this age. Butthis calf, we know it's definitely ten,
and we have a sample of thiscalf at ten. So how accurate

(56:43):
is that sample compared to what weknow from the photo ID data. So
going back to those traditional methods arealways super important and it can actually inform
a lot of my genetics work,which is been like without it, I
don't think it would have had theamount of impact that it's had today.
Wow, methylation markers are evident inthe whales as well. I mean,
I've heard of that being used tokind of determine your your compare your genetic

(57:07):
age to your chronological age. I'veheard of that being done in humans.
But so there are a lot ofsimilarities with the with the with the whales.
Yeah, there are, for sure, but just a little bit behind
and what we're doing, but we'llget there eventually. Yeah, I feel
like I've really picked your brain.But I'm really happy with the messaging that's

(57:27):
coming out in that You're you're takingwhat we teach in a high school to
the nth degree. There's there isadventure, and there's excitement, and there's
mystery, and there's problem solving,uh, and there's relationship to ancient knowledge,
and there's new scientific techniques, allof these things. If you stick
with your science education long enough,you could got to be living this life

(57:52):
too. Yeah, for sure,I'm being super lucky and like I think
I've you know, I think there'stwo types of people when you're at school.
There's people that know that what theywant to do from the get go,
and luckily, I think in away that's lucky, but also it
can be like, you know,you can be honed in a bit too
much one that doesn't know. Butyeah, for sure, I think,
you know, I've always been interestedin this and I've taken it from you

(58:15):
know, just me seeing dolphins havebeen excited to learning more into a stage
that you know, I was ableto come come out with something that is
actually meaningful for society and the communityand for consummation, management of species and
these sorts of things. So andI mean it's something as simple as the
strawberry experiment actually has a lot ofimplications and what I do in the lab.

(58:35):
So you know, it's all there. It's just what the students are
wanting and willing to do with it. It's all possible. But in your
case, there really is a lotof evolution. Your your role evolved over
time, didn't it. But you'restuck with an area of interest and it
just kept evolving into this into thisand this. Now here you are doing
the work you're doing and using christbowlers and shooting the fin of an organ

(58:58):
the seas of Norway while freezing yourfeet. Yes, yes, it's definitely
been quite an adventure. And Imean it hasn't just I've been very lucky,
like I've done fieldwork in really remoteplaces. In Iceland is an example
of one of them. But likeI've said, I've done been able to
do food work in the tropics,the temperate regions, now the polar regions.
So you know, definitely, sciencecan take you on an adventure,
and I think that's something I likeabout it most. And I think the

(59:21):
amount of interactions and the amount ofpeople you get to connect with is also
something that's so marvelous about it.Yeah. Well, I love the whole
story and I'm just really glad thatwe connected. I'm not even sure how
we connected now, but I'm gladthat we did, maybe because it really
is encouraging for continuation of just mentoringthese students through the scientific process and showing

(59:45):
them that there is an end gamein all of this. So thank you
very much for taking the time totalk with me today, and I good
luck in finishing your degree. Thankyou so much. Thanks for having me.
I really enjoyed talking