Armed with Butterfly Nets, Biologists Are Collecting a Mountain of Genomes

Despite technological advances, some biologists still rely on techniques that have been around since the 1800s.

Menno Schilthuizen and his colleagues are using many such time-tested research practices in their study of endemic species on Mount Kinabalu in Borneo. They're attempting to catalog the DNA of as many species on the mountain as possible, and they collect their specimens using nets, vials, and plant presses.

"When I tell people I'm a biologist, they often think of state-of-the-art labs, electron microscopes, advanced computers," says Schilthuizen in the Nature video above. "But actually a lot of my work is more similar to that of a 19th-century naturalist."

Mountains in tropical zones are commonly home to many endemic species—that is, species that live nowhere else but that particular peak. But scientists are seeking to find out exactly how and where these mountain species evolved, and whether they evolved from their lowland relatives or from visiting species that had strayed from farther mountain habitats.

Schilthuizen's time found a mix of both. Genes from relatives on other mountains with equally cool climates made it easier for lowland species to evolve into a new breed adapted for high-altitude living. But when a species is adapted to a hyper-specific habitat, it is easily threatened by any changes to that territory.

"We don't know how well this vulnerable mountain biodiversity will be able to cope with the speed of modern climate change," says Schilthuizen. "Future biologists may well continue wielding those same butterfly nets. The question is whether all these unique mountain species will still be there for them to catch."