Assessing the Health and Resiliency of Seadragons

Although seadragons are beloved by aquarium visitors worldwide, wild seadragons can only be seen off Australia’s southern coast. Little is known about the current conservation status of these animals, due in part to habitat loss secondary to climate change and the difficulty in monitoring these well-camouflaged animals. Researchers have been collecting tissue clips from leafy and common seadragons all across their ranges for over a decade. The team will use these samples to sequence the genomes of the two seadragon species to help assess population health. These data will help provide estimates of population sizes, levels of gene flow across the landscape, assessment of genetic variants, and a forecast of how seadragons may respond to ongoing climate change. The researchers hope to use the data to inform conservation efforts by identifying which seadragon populations are vulnerable and which are more resilient to changes in their habitats