The Gardners of the Forest--Save the Gorilla

Save the Gorilla Grant Proposal.

The Gorilla is not just our closes animal relative, but it is also a very important species to the world. At least one kind of Gorilla species has been on the endangered list since its conception. Extinction of these animals could prove to be very harmful to our Environments mainly the forest that they inhabit. Gorillas are important because they are able to disperse seeds of many tree and plant life in the forest. They eat the plants and seed and later deposit them in different areas. There are seeds that have an adhering affect that latch on to the thick hair of the gorilla transporting it to different places. Without the Gorilla, many of the tree and plant life in major forests would not be able to survive and grow.
My experiment is going to prove this theory and show that Gorillas are more then just a tourist attraction. My hypothesis for this experiment is "Western Lowland Gorillas help the Forests by dispersing seeds"
This experiment will take place over the course of 5 years. It will consist of studying two very similar areas of forest with the same ratio of tree and plant species. One area will contain about 3 small groups of Gorilla while the other area will contain no Gorillas. My control group will be the area without Gorilla; this will test how well the trees and plants are able to grow without the aid of the Gorilla. I will then measure the amount of new plant and tree growth in each area every year for 5 years.
My prediction is that the area that the Gorillas inhabit will have a much higher increase in plant and tree growth as well as the spread of these plant species around the area.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/manchester/content/articles/2006/01/16/160106_gorillas_feature.shtml

Gorillas could be beneficial

Western Lowland Gorilla

Kingdom: Animalia

Phylum: Chordata

Class: Mammalia

Order: Primates

Family: Hominidae

Genus: Gorilla

Species: Gorilla gorilla

http://animaldiversity.ummz.umich.edu/site/accounts/classification/path/Gorilla.html#Gorilla

3 Major Adaptations

1. Sight in color. Gorilla’s have the ability to see in color. This adaptation is very useful because it allows Gorillas to detect contrast between the forests around them. In case of a predator or poacher, they are able to spot movement against the leaves.

2. Opposable thumb. Although this is nothing new to humans, for most animals an opposable thumb is only a dream. Since the Gorilla has this adaptation, they are able to easily grasp objects and even use crude tools.

3. Intelligence in communication. Some Gorillas have been successfully taught how to use sign language to communicate with humans. The Gorilla’s with the brain capacity for deeper communication, could have meaningful communication with humans or possibly other gorillas by sign language.

Adaptation of interest.

I believe that exploiting the Gorilla’s ability to communicate with sign language could be very beneficial to our company. There has been evidence that this ability to learn sign language in Gorillas is not a specie wide ability. Only certain Gorillas have the brain capacity necessary and if we were able to pin point what kind of genes are responsible we could gather these gorillas for testing. Once this is figured out, we could mate Gorillas that are highly capable for sign language with other primates in the same group. Not only does this increase the number of gorillas with this possibility but it will also strengthen the offspring’s ability to understand sign language. I think this could be a huge commercial profit for our company not only because it allows an animal to communicate with us but the entertainment value we could use with “talking” Gorillas and the public.

My plan is to find what gene or genes encode for this higher brain capacity. I will first hire a team of researchers. I will ask some of the facilities that already train Gorillas to allow us to borrow them for MRI’s and CATscan’s. I hope to find a significant difference in brain heat and radiation between sign language Gorillas and normal Gorillas. Once the difference is determined it will be our check sheet to see if the Gorillas we find in the wild are capable of sign language. After mating these selected Gorillas, we will also be able to test the offspring to understand if these genes are passed down equally or not.

There is a possibility of eventually creating a new species by doing this. If another mutation was involved in these already highly intelligent Gorillas, a new brain wave capacity could occur in the offspring of these Gorillas. Even though the development of speech would take many more mutations of vocal cords and things of that nature, the ability to become self away and think in abstract terms could one day be possible.

I think that his plans will be very successful; I think it would be excited to see what could come of gorillas communicating in a human way. This will not only be beneficial to our company but it could very much be beneficial to the survival of the Gorilla.

http://seaworld.org/animal-info/info-books/gorilla/adaptations.htm

DNA TO BETTER THE SPECIES.

Society for the Conservation of the Western Lowland Gorilla.

After the previous research of the Western Lowland Gorilla, I concluded that poaching and deforestation was the main cause of this species endangerment. The destruction of their habitat leaves these animals vulnerable mainly because they can not adapt quick enough to the new environment. Poaching is a very serious issue and is responsible for the deaths of many gorillas every year. I think that involving DNA with the research of these animals will be very beneficial. A researcher named Yael Wyner, used DNA to map certain lemurs that were taking from American zoos that were released into the wild to mate with native lemurs. This DNA fingerprinting helped researchers keep track of the “Zoo” lemurs and how they were adapting to the new environment. I think this would be helpful with the Gorilla. Gorillas are very intelligent and can be easily trained. I think that training Gorillas in zoos to be better adapted to environments that resemble a pressured environment from deforestation would benefit the species. We could also subject the “Zoo” Gorillas to certain stimuli that resemble the tracking of poachers and see which ones are better adapted at evading the hunters. The Gorillas that pass this test could then be shipped to areas of endangered gorillas so that they can mate and inhabit the area. Using the same technique as Wyner, we can track the “Zoo” Gorillas and see just how successful they are in the wild. Since it seems quite clear that we as humans are not going to stop causing the problem anytime soon, we must begin to try to alter the behavior of the victim in order to help it survive.

Society for the Genetic Modification of the Western Lowland Gorilla.

Modifying the DNA of the Western Lowland Gorilla enough to change the characteristics of the Gorilla would be difficult. After discovering what factors cause the endangerment of this species, it would be beneficial to alter the ability for evading hunters. The ability to see through dense forest and detect sudden movement would be very helpful. The ability to react very quickly to gunshots or sudden noises would also benefit the Gorilla. A gene that could improve the eyesight of the gorilla as well as strengthen the reflex and fast twitch muscles of the gorilla would help in its escape from danger. It is well known that an owl has a very keen sense of sight. This is two to the mass number of rods inside their eyes. If we could transplant the gene that is responsible for so many rods into the DNA of a gorilla we could increase the Gorillas ability to detect movement from very far away, even at night. Once the Gorilla detects danger, its ability to react and escapes need to be improved. I think that using the reflex and burst speed of a deer would be very beneficial for the Gorilla. The sympathetic nervous system in a whitetail deer has very quick signal response. The sympathetic nervous system is responsible for the “flight” behavior of any animal. Taking the certain genes that strengthen the signal in the sympathetic nervous system of a deer and putting it into the Gorilla would allow it to react very quickly to whatever it has detected with its new super vision.

Impact that this might have on the environment would be very small. Gorillas would still behave as they normally do only now they would not fall victims to poaching nearly as much. If this gene were to be passed to other species it would only benefit that species as well. I don’t see any negative impacts that the alteration of these genes would produce. This ability could be used for hunting as well as evading. If this series of genes were some how passed to animal predators, then a lot of other animals could become endangered merely because their usual predators are so much more successful in their own hunts.

http://www.worlddeer.org/deerbiology.html

http://www.owls.org/Information/eyesight.htm

http://ology.amnh.org/genetics/aroundtheworld/pages/lemur.html

Western Lowland Gorilla

http://www.colszoo.org/animalareas/aforest/gorilla.html

Western Lowland Gorilla

The Western Lowland Gorilla or Gorilla gorilla gorilla is located around Congo and Cameroon of Africa.

The Western Lowland Gorilla, from the Kingdom Animalia and Domain Eukarya, resides in dense forest and swamplands of Africa. It is a vertebrate mammal and its habitat is terrestrial. The gorilla prefers very dense forest. This habitat is usually very regulated in temperature (around 23 degrees Celsius) and a regular amount of 12 hour daylight. The Lowland areas, where these Gorillas reside, have dry seasons with many deciduous trees, shrubs and succulents. Our Western Lowland Gorilla is particularly around the equator such as Gabon and Congo. The Eastern Lowland Gorilla inhabits a more tropical forest area of Africa. The Western Lowland Gorilla has a diet of large fruits and mature leaves and stems (Busch). They also consume termites and ants. A huge majority of their diet is seasonal fruit, something that might be altered due to Global Warming. In 1999, the Western Lowland Gorilla was the most numerous gorilla species at 92,000 (Busch). However, due to the increase of deforestation due to the demand of the economy for lumber, the Western Lowland Gorillas are now on the endangered list. Gorillas don’t really show any kind of biological prospective besides their impact on the local economy. Gorilla tracking and attractions add to about 10 percent of the local tourism profit. Global warming could have an affect on these animals. Since these animals exist at very steady temperatures and climate, sudden changes in these factors could alter the life cycle of Gorillas. The cutting down of trees in Africa is the leading cause for the endangerment of Gorillas, just above poaching.

Walsh, P.D., Tutin, C.E.G., Oates, J.F., Baillie, J.E.M., Maisels, F., Stokes, E.J., Gatti, S., Bergl, R.A., Sunderland-Groves, J. & Dunn. A. 2007. Gorilla gorilla. In: IUCN 2007. 2007 IUCN Red List of Threatened Species. www.iucnredlist.org. Accessed on 29 September 2007.

Busch Entertainment Corporation. (2005). Gorillas. SeaWorld/Busch Gardens ANIMALS. http://swbg-animals.com/animal-info/info-books/gorilla/habitat-&-distribution.htm (Accessed on September)