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Dr Hiranya Sudasinghe: How Much of Sri Lanka’s Wildlife Story Are We Still Unable to Read?
- 2 days ago
- 2 min read
Updated: 2 days ago
STORY 8 OF 10: Part of a series of short stories inspired by our conversation with Dr Hiranya Sudasinghe, sharing what years of experience have taught them to see.
A scientist takes a tiny piece of tissue from a fish.
Inside it is DNA containing millions of pieces of biological information.
The difficulty is not that the information is absent.
The difficulty is having the equipment, funding, computing power and specialist knowledge required to read enough of it.
In some Sri Lankan studies, researchers have worked with relatively short DNA sequences.
In Hiranya’s doctoral and postdoctoral research overseas, he has been able to analyse genome-scale datasets containing vastly more information.
It is the difference between being handed a paragraph and being given access to the archive.
More information does not automatically produce better science. A badly designed genome study can still produce a bad conclusion with impressive computing requirements.
But larger datasets may enable scientists to ask questions at far greater resolution.
They may help reveal whether populations remain connected, where genetic diversity is concentrated, whether a population has experienced a severe decline and which surviving populations may be especially important for recovery.
Hiranya is direct about the scientific-capacity gap.
Hiranya’s words that inspired this story
“In my PhD and post-doc, I’m analysing the genetic data at the genome scale. So that’s a lot of data.”
“Whereas what I’m analysing… in the Sri Lankan fishes is just like a few hundred base pairs.”
“I think we are far behind in terms of the way science is advancing in our field versus what we are doing in Sri Lanka. I think there’s a huge gap in terms of the resources available, but the right capacity is there!”
Why it matters
Sri Lanka may possess globally important biodiversity while lacking the local capacity to study it fully.
The countries containing the species may not always contain the laboratories, sequencing facilities, computing resources or long-term funding required to understand them.
The species are here.
Many of the tools needed to read their stories may not be.
What this changes
Conservation investment should include
Biological collections
Long-term monitoring
Modern laboratories
DNA sequencing
Computing infrastructure
Bioinformatics
Research training
Stable scientific careers
A laboratory may not produce the emotional photograph of a rescued animal.
It may produce the information that prevents conservation from protecting the wrong place or recognising the danger too late.
Next beneath the surface
Science may identify the habitat that matters.
But what happens when protecting that habitat places the entire cost upon the family living beside it?
Meet Dr Hiranya: Read He Chose the Fish
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