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Tracking animals from space using dedicated small satellites—that’s the goal of the global research initiative ICARUS. Plus: same‑sex behavior in animals and insect research in action, from glowworms to fireflies.
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AnimalsTranscript
00:00Billions of animals move across our planet every single day, but their migratory practices
00:13still remain largely a mystery.
00:15Research teams have shed light on the phenomenon with a project called Icarus, an initiative
00:20aimed at detecting patterns of animal movement, like changes in routes taken by white storks.
00:27Every year they migrate between Europe and Africa.
00:30But now more are setting off earlier, or spending winters in southern Europe.
00:35In the future, Icarus will be able to track these exact changes.
00:41Just one of the exciting topics coming up on Tomorrow Today.
00:45Welcome to the show.
00:47Protecting rhinos from poachers.
00:54Attacking migratory bird routes.
00:57Detecting animal diseases like African swine fever at an early stage.
01:02The Icarus project is turning these dreams into realities.
01:07It's headed up by ornithologist and animal monitoring expert Martin Wikelski.
01:12The project has seen some real success stories.
01:15Take wild dogs, a threatened species.
01:18There are only about 400 left in Kruger National Park.
01:22They get caught in poachers' snares.
01:24Now, as soon as that happens, they send us a message.
01:27My pack is moving in an odd way.
01:29Please come and remove the snare.
01:31And we do.
01:32In the last two years, we've saved about 50.
01:36To receive the data, a 2-meter antenna was installed in 2018 on the Russian segment of the ISS.
01:44We picked up signals from tiny transmitters carried by the animals and sent them to MoveBank, a massive database.
01:51At its launch, researchers were euphoric.
01:56We worked 16 years for this day.
01:58Now the antenna is up.
02:00Icarus is finally flying.
02:02It's an incredible feeling because now real science can begin.
02:07The joy didn't last.
02:09After Russia invaded Ukraine, the data stream dried up, a major setback for Wikelski and his team.
02:17It was total chaos.
02:19We spent 20 years building this system, and then overnight it was dead.
02:24We asked our engineers, can you do it differently?
02:27Can you use, for example, what we learned from the ISS to make it smaller?
02:33The idea was to replace the antenna on the space station with small satellites.
02:38And the Icarus engineers succeeded, creating a startup and developing a microsatellite system.
02:45Company co-founder Gregor Langer explains its advantages.
02:49On the ISS, the system was the size of a fridge, and it was housed inside the station.
02:59It was big and power-hungry.
03:01Now we're making it much, much smaller.
03:04We've shrunk it to the size of a shoebox.
03:06Here are the antennas.
03:09The whole system is slims down, cheaper, and of far more use to scientists.
03:15The new system also promises better reception and scalability.
03:19Langer says it can be expanded at will.
03:24While waiting for satellite deployment, the Icarus team worked on new transmitters.
03:30They look something like these.
03:34Nina Richter is the project's technical coordinator.
03:41Now we have smart algorithms calculating what's going on.
03:45We can have AI directly on the chip, so data can be analyzed directly on the animal.
03:53That gives us much more specific information than before.
03:58That's a huge step forward.
04:02The researchers have also used terrestrial systems like cell phone towers to track pets
04:08with GPS collars and read their vital signs.
04:14Nils Linek analyzes the data.
04:19We see strong reactions to changes caused by human behavior, like climate change, but also
04:25events like New Year's fireworks and Oktoberfest.
04:29We can now quantify how much animals are affected and how long it takes them to recover.
04:37On a former military site in the German state of Baden-Württemberg, Wieckowski's team tested
04:44land-based systems that could help protect herds.
04:47Claudia Galatz's goats graze on rough terrain and need protection from wolves.
04:58They wear collars that measure acceleration.
05:02It's basically tracking how the goat moves.
05:07If the animal jumps up or jumps back and forth, then the acceleration spikes.
05:13If it becomes clear that something wild is happening, then Claudia gets alerted by the system directly.
05:22Sensors worn by animals can even protect humans.
05:25On Mount Etna in Italy, Wieckowski tested whether goats can serve as an early warning system for
05:31volcanic eruptions.
05:34We don't know what goats sense.
05:39Maybe they detect signals from other animals, like from worms in the soil, that transmit it somehow
05:45to the goats via birds.
05:48Or maybe it's something they smell or feel directly.
05:52We still have to find all that out.
05:56And that's the exciting part.
05:58We've seen that they can detect it.
06:01And now we want to learn exactly what they're sensing.
06:04And how.
06:09The Icarus team still has many questions.
06:12Wieckowski plans to merge land-based and satellite systems so the project will once again be able
06:18to collect data over oceans.
06:21It's incredible when you think that we've been working on this system for 25 years.
06:28A few times it almost died, but we somehow managed to pull it back from the brink every time.
06:35And now it's finally heading into orbit.
06:38It's an amazing feeling to be back in space with a system like this.
06:46The new system will even gather data over the poles, regions where the ISS doesn't fly.
06:53In spring, many toads and frogs set out on a journey to their spawning grounds.
07:04To get there, males of some species hitch a ride by jumping on the backs of others.
07:10Evolved behaviours like this don't always have such clear benefits, though.
07:15Which brings us to an interesting question sent in by our viewer Sibasiso D from South Africa.
07:21Is there homosexuality in the animal kingdom?
07:27The ancient Greek philosopher Aristotle mentioned same-sex behaviours in animals over 2300 years ago.
07:36Today, scientists estimate that across the animal kingdom, over 1500 species engage in some form
07:44of such behaviours.
07:46Theories about why they've developed generally list three reasons.
07:52First, social cohesion.
07:55In herd animals like sheep, same-sex interactions seem to help reduce tension and promote harmony
08:01within the group.
08:03Among monkeys and lions, the behaviours appear to strengthen coalitions and bonding.
08:10As for pleasure is also common in many species, like between bottlenose dolphins.
08:15They may even experience orgasms.
08:18Walruses interact sexually with their own sex almost exclusively until reaching maturity.
08:25And in butterflies, same-sex behaviour may serve as practice for future reproduction.
08:32Finally, there could be evolutionary advantages.
08:37Some researchers think that flexible sexuality can indirectly support reproduction.
08:43Animals engaging in same-sex behaviours often receive more social support, boosting both
08:49their individual chances of survival and that of their species in general.
08:56In many types of birds, same-sex pairs will sometimes adopt abandoned eggs and raise chicks together.
09:03In some albatross species, up to 30% of all pairs are made up of two females.
09:10So, although same-sex behaviour in animals was long considered rare, it isn't really.
09:17It serves many functions and might, in many cases, play a role in species development.
09:27What are stars made of?
09:29How many colours can butterflies see?
09:32Could robots have babies one day?
09:35Do you have a science question?
09:37Then send it to us as a video, text or voice message.
09:40If we answer it in the show, then we'll send you a little gift as a thank you.
09:44So, just ask.
09:52Love at first sight.
09:54But what if you can no longer track that special someone down?
09:58For glowworms, finding a mate is no easy matter nowadays, thanks to our ever-brighter cities.
10:04Female glowworms can't fly, so they rely on their bright, glowing rear end to attract a partner.
10:10Or, biologically put, a biochemical reaction takes place in the cells of their abdomen.
10:15It involves luciferin and ATP and leads to energy being produced in the form of light.
10:21This is known as bioluminescence.
10:24But can it compete with artificial light?
10:26A study sent male glowworms into a maze to search for a female mate.
10:33There were varying amounts of light in the maze.
10:37When it was dark, the male found the female every time.
10:41But under streetlight conditions, only every fifth male managed it.
10:46The artificial light likely dazzled the beetles.
10:48So, let's turn the lights off more often and give the glowworms some much-needed private time.
10:57And a zoo in Switzerland wants to profit from that magical glow,
11:02which is also emitted by fungus gnat larvae from Australia.
11:06They normally live in caves where they spin threads.
11:09The glow lures insects into their sticky traps.
11:13Here at Walter Zoo, they sparkle in the dark.
11:17The area is closely monitored.
11:20Only Zoo Director Karen Federer and breeder Judith Taxbock have access to the Australian glowworms.
11:26The breeding program started with 100 eggs from a fungus gnat that was imported from Tokyo.
11:35We've been wanting to show people this living light for some time.
11:40But it's hard to do that with domestic glowworms.
11:45When I was visiting Australia and saw these in a cave, the idea came up again.
11:50And that's how this project got started.
11:56Judith Taxbock spends hours every day caring for the tiny animals,
12:03which develop into gnats after several months as larvae.
12:07It's painstaking work.
12:09Every egg, and later every larva, has to be placed by hand.
12:17One wrong move, even with this brush, can kill them.
12:20You have to remain extremely calm.
12:22That's why I like working evenings when it's quiet.
12:28And it's not just the larvae.
12:30The eggs also have to be treated very carefully.
12:34After mating, the female lays eggs, which are lined up in a glass container.
12:43These are the eggs I collected yesterday.
12:45We have to wait about two weeks for the first larvae to emerge.
12:55Once hatched, each larva is placed carefully on a clay surface in the container,
13:00where it begins spinning threads.
13:03It's fed fruit flies, and in the dark, soon begins to glow.
13:07The zoo is currently planning its biggest project in 64 years,
13:14the construction of a cave exhibit on insects and conservation.
13:19Inside it, 20,000 to 30,000 glowworms will light up the ceiling.
13:24A one-of-a-kind project in Europe.
13:28But from 250 larvae that turned into pupae, only 10 adult female gnats emerged.
13:35That's far too few for rapid reproduction.
13:38And there's another risk.
13:39What if the non-native species escaped into the wild?
13:43The zoo had to assess the risks.
13:48The invasiveness risk is very low.
13:51These larvae are very picky.
13:53They hate cold temperatures, for example.
13:55And to thrive, humidity has to be over 90 percent, which practically never happens here.
14:04So they wouldn't survive in the wild.
14:08Was it important for the zoo to ensure that couldn't happen?
14:14It was crucial.
14:16We had to clarify that issue before importing them.
14:18So we consulted with an Australian expert who reassured us that these animals wouldn't be able to become invasive.
14:26After 18 months of breeding, the shine of Australian glowworms is growing here.
14:32But for now, it's still a project behind closed doors.
14:38Insects can act in surprisingly smart ways.
14:41Bumblebees, for example, seem to have a range of complex cognitive abilities.
14:46Like when it comes to finding food, where they use a clever trick to get what they want.
14:54Bumblebees have evolved some clever ways to satisfy their appetites.
14:58For instance, they can analyze flowers and identify which have the most pollen and nectar.
15:04They can even encourage plants to start blooming earlier.
15:08As climate change brings warmer weather earlier in the year, pollinator activity is shifting too.
15:15But in spring, the insects and their larvae depend on pollen for survival.
15:20If there's too little of it because plants haven't yet begun flowering,
15:24biting the leaves causes the process to begin up to four weeks earlier than usual.
15:29In uncertain times, this bumblebee ability is very useful.
15:35The exact mechanism behind how biting leaves accelerates flowering, however, is still unclear.
15:44More than a million insect species have been described worldwide.
15:48But many more remain undiscovered out there, especially in the tropics.
15:53Some biologists estimate there could be up to five million.
15:56However, insects are also in decline around the globe.
16:01Research teams on practically every continent report significant drops in insect populations.
16:07In Germany, these declines are now being calculated accurately.
16:13The Latumerbruch Nature Reserve is one of the places in Germany where scientists are asking a crucial question.
16:20How are insects doing in the country? Are populations continuing to dwindle?
16:27To find out, researchers from the Entomological Society in the nearby city of Krefeld use special tent-like structures called malaise traps.
16:36This is an automated trap that catches insects more or less by chance.
16:45The insects end up here in alcohol, which kills and preserves them.
16:52We do it this way because most insects simply can't be identified in the field.
16:57We can do that quite well for butterflies, dragonflies, and grasshoppers.
17:02But the majority of the ones we catch are tiny midges and flies.
17:06And we need to include those in our studies as well if we want to practice conservation and protect these organisms.
17:15If they're preserved in alcohol, modern methods allow even the smallest of insects to later be identified in the lab.
17:22The researchers also analyzed the total biomass caught.
17:26Each sample container is a kind of snapshot.
17:29A key aspect is that the traps are always used in exactly the same way.
17:37The first study to use these traps in a German nature reserve took place in 1985.
17:43And ever since, until today, the traps have been built in exactly the same way.
17:48So we control the manufacturing process, and the way the traps are deployed in the field is standardized.
17:56Using this method, the researchers here made headlines in 2017.
18:02In an internationally recognized long-term study, they showed that over three decades,
18:08the biomass of flying insects in German nature reserves had declined by more than 75%.
18:16Since then, the scientists have significantly expanded their monitoring efforts.
18:22The first study, back in 2017, was carried out at 60 locations in just three states.
18:29Since then, various research projects have surveyed more than 600 sites all over the country, mainly in protected areas.
18:40A trend is emerging.
18:45In the past, we would measure peak insect biomass usually in mid to late July or early August.
18:51That's when it occurred.
18:52Today, at many trap sites, we're seeing peak values already at the end of June or early July.
19:05What this shift means exactly is still unclear.
19:09It remains an open question that will have to be addressed in future studies.
19:14And what about insect biomass overall?
19:18Data collection for a follow-up study, called Krefeld II, continued through the end of the growing season in 2025.
19:27In the rooms that house the society's scientific collection, the contents of the containers from the traps are weighed and documented.
19:38Every sample is handled the same way, one after the other.
19:43That makes the values comparable.
19:45We don't know anyone else who works with this level of standardization.
19:53This strict focus on comparability is what makes the Krefeld results so valuable.
20:01Even though the current data series has yet to be fully evaluated,
20:05the researchers are already pessimistic about the state of insect populations in Germany.
20:11We're seeing that insect biomass continues to decline.
20:16And in areas we're studying for the first time, levels are already very low.
20:20That tells us the situation hasn't changed.
20:24When insect biomass drops, biodiversity usually declines as well.
20:30The Krefeld team's work has already demonstrated this connection.
20:35And high species diversity is crucial for keeping ecosystems in balance.
20:42The Entomological Society's historical collection documents 140 years of insect history in Germany.
20:50It shows just how severe biodiversity loss has become.
20:54One example, a butterfly known as the dusky large blue was once widespread.
21:02Today, preserving the species requires major conservation efforts.
21:08Collections like this, these specimens, document changes in biodiversity over time.
21:13This particular species of butterfly is important because we have reliable evidence showing how it has declined.
21:21We can actually see extinction processes reflected in these collections.
21:27In the wild, tracking changes in species diversity is a huge amount of work.
21:34The Krefeld II study is also taking a closer look at types of habitats.
21:40Which is why the researchers now also regularly collect additional data from high above the ground,
21:47helping put measurements in context.
21:53This data is always compared with habitat types and vegetation surveys at the trap sites.
22:01So we automatically correlate the measurements we collect on insect biomass
22:06with environmental data from the surrounding area.
22:11The research still hasn't revealed exactly where insect declines are most severe.
22:17But even in habitats that are usually home to many of them, like bogs or dry grasslands,
22:23populations have continued to shrink over time.
22:27There's a range of reasons why.
22:29Increasing pesticide use in agriculture plays a role,
22:33as does more light and air pollution, but also inadequate maintenance in protected areas.
22:40And the experts in Krefeld see no signs insect decline will taper off or end anytime soon.
22:47Globally, there have been few successful efforts to truly preserve biodiversity.
22:54We're close to missing EU targets.
22:56Not a single one of them that's been laid out is currently on track.
23:00And as long as environmental issues aren't taken seriously in political decision making,
23:05nothing will change.
23:09The Krefeld researchers plan to publish their latest findings this year.
23:15But it's unlikely they'll provide reason for relief.
23:22Did you know that at least some kinds of mosquitoes only mate once?
23:26Leslie Vosthol and her team studied the factors surrounding mosquito copulation.
23:32How did the scientists go about it? And what did they discover? We asked.
23:40Why do we care about copulation in mosquitoes? Everybody said that females mate only once,
23:45and that males are in charge of the decision. But if that's true, then females should mate
23:50multiple times in their lifetime. So there was something that made no sense.
23:53The experimental setup was really crazy because we had to have very, very precise high-speed cameras.
24:03So we had to, we pinned the female onto a metal pin like a trapeze artist suspended in the air.
24:10And then we pointed the camera at her genitals and watched the males attempt to mate with her.
24:15The experiments show that mosquito sex lasts just a few seconds. Then males take off again.
24:22Only once. So the virgins would mate once. So they would be receptive once. And then for the rest of
24:30their lives, they would stand there and just say, no, no. So we watched many frustrated male
24:36mosquitoes attempting to mate with females who just said no all day long.
24:41To enable mating, the female actively had to elongate the tip of her genitals,
24:46which she would generally only do once.
24:52We used genetic engineering to make males that have either green sperm or red sperm. It's really
24:57easy to check. You just basically have the males ejaculate and the sperm is either red or green. It's
25:03very obvious and very cool. And then we open up the females and ask, were multiple males able to mate
25:09with them. And what we find time and time again is that they either have red sperm or green sperm in
25:14them, meaning that the females are saying no after they mate once.
25:23This work is very important for controlling mosquito populations for public health purposes.
25:28A lot of efforts are underway to release males that are going to be able to interrupt reproduction of
25:35females. So it's very important that those males are going to be the one and done males. You want
25:39to make sure that those males are high quality males that will be the ones that convince the
25:43virgins to mate with them. So that's the big importance here.
25:49That's all for now, but we hope you'll join us again next time for more exciting stories from
25:54the world of science and technology here on Tomorrow Today. Bye-bye.
26:05Bye-bye.
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