Ready salted: conservation of saline environments

For centuries, salt has been a culturally important resource as a food preservative, thanks to its sterilising properties. Yet, salty environments, and indeed salt crystals themselves are far from lifeless environments. A single salt crystal may contain several thousand microorganisms, whilst salt pans and hypersaline lagoons contain diverse communities of microorganisms, capable of surviving salinities 10 times higher than sea water. These microoganisms can survive for millions of years entombed in a salt crystal, and even have prospects of surviving on Mars.

While we are all familiar with oysters grown around Essex estuaries, today most of our oysters are pacific rock oysters introduced to the UK in the 1960s. There has been a decline in native wild and cultured European flat oysters which are now found in only a handful of strongholds in the wild or where oystermen maintain their habitats. Colchester’s coast is first UK Marine Conservation Zone to be designated not only for oysters but the habitats they create. Tom will present research from three organisations that supported the designation and provides evidence for future conservation policy.

Animals have been kept by humans for thousands of years and in zoos for nearly 200 years. However the role of zoos has changed over time as human pressures on the natural world continue to increase. In this talk we will look at the role zoos play in global conservation, looking at the conservation work that happens in zoos and in the wild as well as how animals in zoos help their wild counterparts.