Assembling a greater chance of bilby survival

 A team of scientists has sequenced the Australian bilby's genome and captured biological information on how they grow and evolve, an important tool for conservation of the threatened species.

Dr Rich Edwards, from Minderoo OceanOmics Centre at UWA's Oceans Institute, was co-author of the study led by Professor Carolyn Hogg at the University of Sydney and published in Nature Ecology & Evolution.

Notable for their large ears and backward facing pouches, bilbies are burrowing nocturnal omnivores and use their strong forelimbs and long claws to find food and turn over soil and organic matter.

"The bilby is an Australian icon but sadly survival is now threatened by introduced pest species," Dr Edwards said.

There were once two bilby species, the Lesser bilby, which became extinct in the 1960s, and the Greater bilby that now exists in only 20 per cent of its former habitat range, mostly in the central deserts of Western Australia and the Northern Territory.

Using DNA from a deceased zoo bilby, researchers sequenced the genome of the surviving Greater bilby and created the first genome for the extinct Lesser bilby from the skull of a specimen collected in 1898.

"Assembling a genome is like trying to piece back together an encyclopedia after it has been through a shredder," Dr Edwards said.

"Except in the case of the bilby, the encyclopedia has over 3.6 billion letters – larger than the human genome – organised in nine volumes."

The genome is being used to manage the bilby metapopulation in zoos, fenced sanctuaries and islands.

"The Greater bilby reference genome is one of the highest quality marsupial genomes to date, presented as nine pieces, representing each of the bilby chromosomes," Professor Hogg, a UWA graduate, said.

"It helps us understand what gives bilbies their unique sense of smell and how they survive in the desert without drinking water."

Bilbies are being selected for translocation and release, to maximise genetic diversity and improves the population's ability to adapt to a changing world.

The team has also used the genome to develop a more precise scat testing method to complement existing traditional land-use practices by Indigenous rangers.

Ranger Scott West from the Kiwirrkurra Indigenous Protected Area in Western Australia said a lot was known about where bilbies lived, what they ate and how to track them.

"It's good to use iPads for mapping, and cameras to monitor them and the DNA work also helps check if bilbies are related, where they are from and how far they travelled," Mr West said.

"Using old ways and new ways together helps us get good information about bilbies and how to look after them."

https://www.uwa.edu.au/news/article/2024/july/assembling-a-greater-chance-of-bilby-survival