Ex-situ conservation
Encyclopedia
Ex-situ conservation means literally, "off-site conservation
". It is the process of protecting an endangered species
of plant or animal outside of its natural habitat; for example, by removing part of the population
from a threatened habitat
and placing it in a new location, which may be a wild area or within the care of humans. While ex-situ conservation comprises some of the oldest and best known conservation methods, it also involves newer, sometimes controversial laboratory methods.
, soil
s, symbiotic species, absence of severe predation
, etc.) It is also technically challenging to uproot (in the case of plants) or trap (in the case of animals) the required organism
s without undue harm.
An example of colony relocation in the wild is the case of the endangered Santa Cruz Tarweed
, a new colony of which was discovered during a mid 1980s survey at the site of a proposed shopping center in as western Contra Costa County. Once the city of Pinole
had decided to approve the shopping center, the city relied on a relocation plan developed by Earth Metrics scientists to remove the entire colony to a nearby location immediately east of Interstate Highway 80 within the Caltrans right-of-way
s and botanical garden
s are the most conventional methods of ex-situ conservation, all of which house whole, protected specimens for breeding and reintroduction into the wild when necessary and possible. These facilities provide not only housing and care for specimens of endangered species, but also have an educational value. They inform the public of the threatened status of endangered species and of those factors which cause the threat, with the hope of creating public interest in stopping and reversing those factors which jeopardize a species' survival in the first place. They are the most publicly visited ex-situ conservation sites, with the WZCS (World Zoo Conservation Strategy) estimating that the 1100 organized zoos in the world receive more than 600 million visitors annually.
Endangered plants may also be preserved in part through seedbank
s or germplasm
banks. The term seedbank sometimes refers to a cryogenic laboratory facility in which the seeds of certain species can be preserved for up to a century or more without losing their fertility. It can also be used to refer to a special type of arboretum where seeds are harvested and the crop is rotated. For plants that cannot be preserved in seedbanks, the only other option for preserving germplasm is in-vitro storage, where cuttings of plants are kept under strict conditions in glass tubes and vessels.
Endangered animal species are preserved using similar techniques. The genetic information needed in the future to reproduce endangered animal species can be preserved in genebanks, which consist of cryogenic facilities used to store living sperm
, egg
s, or embryo
s. The Zoological Society of San Diego has established a "Frozen zoo
" to store such samples using modern cryopreservation
techniques from more than 355 species, including mammals, reptiles, and birds.
A potential technique for aiding in reproduction of endangered species is interspecific pregnancy, implanting embryos of an endangered species into the womb of a female of a related species, carrying it to term. It has been carried out for the Spanish Ibex
.
Showy Indian clover, Trifolium amoenum, is an example of a species that was thought to be extinct, but was rediscovered in 1993 by Peter Connors in the form of a single plant at a site in western Sonoma County. Connors harvested seeds and grew specimens of this critically endangered species
in a controlled environment.
The Wollemi Pine
is another example of a plant that is being preserved via ex-situ conservation, as they are being grown in nurseries to be sold to the general public.
because it cannot recreate the habitat as a whole: the entire genetic variation
of a species, its symbiotic
counterparts, or those elements which, over time, might help a species adapt to its changing surroundings. Instead, ex-situ conservation removes the species from its natural ecological contexts, preserving it under semi-isolated conditions whereby natural evolution and adaptation processes are either temporarily halted or altered by introducing the specimen to an unnatural habitat. In the case of cryogenic storage methods, the preserved specimen's adaptation processes are frozen altogether. The downside to this is that, when re-released, the species may lack the genetic adaptations and mutations which would allow it to thrive in its ever-changing natural habitat.
Furthermore, ex-situ conservation techniques are often costly, with cryogenic storage being economically infeasible in most cases since species stored in this manner cannot provide a profit but instead slowly drain the financial resources of the government or organization determined to operate them. Seedbank
s are ineffective for certain plant genera
with recalcitrant seeds that do not remain fertile for long periods of time. Diseases and pests foreign to the species, to which the species has no natural defense, may also cripple crops of protected plants in ex-situ plantations and in animals living in ex-situ breeding grounds. These factors, combined with the specific environmental needs of many species, some of which are nearly impossible to recreate by man, make ex-situ conservation impossible for a great number of the world's endangered flora and fauna.
Conservation movement
The conservation movement, also known as nature conservation, is a political, environmental and a social movement that seeks to protect natural resources including animal, fungus and plant species as well as their habitat for the future....
". It is the process of protecting an endangered species
Endangered species
An endangered species is a population of organisms which is at risk of becoming extinct because it is either few in numbers, or threatened by changing environmental or predation parameters...
of plant or animal outside of its natural habitat; for example, by removing part of the population
Population
A population is all the organisms that both belong to the same group or species and live in the same geographical area. The area that is used to define a sexual population is such that inter-breeding is possible between any pair within the area and more probable than cross-breeding with individuals...
from a threatened habitat
Habitat (ecology)
A habitat is an ecological or environmental area that is inhabited by a particular species of animal, plant or other type of organism...
and placing it in a new location, which may be a wild area or within the care of humans. While ex-situ conservation comprises some of the oldest and best known conservation methods, it also involves newer, sometimes controversial laboratory methods.
Colony relocation
The best method of maximizing a species chance of survival (when ex-situ methods are required) is by relocating part of the population to a less threatened location. It is extremely difficult to mimic the environment of the original colony location given the large number of variables defining the original colony (microclimateMicroclimate
A microclimate is a local atmospheric zone where the climate differs from the surrounding area. The term may refer to areas as small as a few square feet or as large as many square miles...
, soil
Soil
Soil is a natural body consisting of layers of mineral constituents of variable thicknesses, which differ from the parent materials in their morphological, physical, chemical, and mineralogical characteristics...
s, symbiotic species, absence of severe predation
Predation
In ecology, predation describes a biological interaction where a predator feeds on its prey . Predators may or may not kill their prey prior to feeding on them, but the act of predation always results in the death of its prey and the eventual absorption of the prey's tissue through consumption...
, etc.) It is also technically challenging to uproot (in the case of plants) or trap (in the case of animals) the required organism
Organism
In biology, an organism is any contiguous living system . In at least some form, all organisms are capable of response to stimuli, reproduction, growth and development, and maintenance of homoeostasis as a stable whole.An organism may either be unicellular or, as in the case of humans, comprise...
s without undue harm.
An example of colony relocation in the wild is the case of the endangered Santa Cruz Tarweed
Santa Cruz Tarweed
The Santa Cruz Tarweed is an endangered plant endemic to certain coastal terraces in Northern California. Its principal range is in Santa Cruz County and Monterey County, but smaller colonies have been found slightly to the north...
, a new colony of which was discovered during a mid 1980s survey at the site of a proposed shopping center in as western Contra Costa County. Once the city of Pinole
Pinole, California
Pinole is a city in Contra Costa County, California, United States. The population was 18,390 at the 2010 census. It is one of many small “bedroom communities” along the I-80 corridor in Western Contra Costa County. It is located about northeast of San Francisco, and approximately a half-hour...
had decided to approve the shopping center, the city relied on a relocation plan developed by Earth Metrics scientists to remove the entire colony to a nearby location immediately east of Interstate Highway 80 within the Caltrans right-of-way
Easement
An easement is a certain right to use the real property of another without possessing it.Easements are helpful for providing pathways across two or more pieces of property or allowing an individual to fish in a privately owned pond...
Human care methods
ZooZoo
A zoological garden, zoological park, menagerie, or zoo is a facility in which animals are confined within enclosures, displayed to the public, and in which they may also be bred....
s and botanical garden
Botanical garden
A botanical garden The terms botanic and botanical, and garden or gardens are used more-or-less interchangeably, although the word botanic is generally reserved for the earlier, more traditional gardens. is a well-tended area displaying a wide range of plants labelled with their botanical names...
s are the most conventional methods of ex-situ conservation, all of which house whole, protected specimens for breeding and reintroduction into the wild when necessary and possible. These facilities provide not only housing and care for specimens of endangered species, but also have an educational value. They inform the public of the threatened status of endangered species and of those factors which cause the threat, with the hope of creating public interest in stopping and reversing those factors which jeopardize a species' survival in the first place. They are the most publicly visited ex-situ conservation sites, with the WZCS (World Zoo Conservation Strategy) estimating that the 1100 organized zoos in the world receive more than 600 million visitors annually.
Endangered plants may also be preserved in part through seedbank
Seedbank
A seedbank stores seeds as a source for planting in case seed reserves elsewhere are destroyed. It is a type of gene bank. The seeds stored may be food crops, or those of rare species to protect biodiversity. The reasons for storing seeds may be varied...
s or germplasm
Germplasm
A germplasm is a collection of genetic resources for an organism. For plants, the germplasm may be stored as a seed collection or, for trees, in a nursery.-See also:*Germ plasm, the germ cell determining zone...
banks. The term seedbank sometimes refers to a cryogenic laboratory facility in which the seeds of certain species can be preserved for up to a century or more without losing their fertility. It can also be used to refer to a special type of arboretum where seeds are harvested and the crop is rotated. For plants that cannot be preserved in seedbanks, the only other option for preserving germplasm is in-vitro storage, where cuttings of plants are kept under strict conditions in glass tubes and vessels.
Spermatozoon
A spermatozoon is a motile sperm cell, or moving form of the haploid cell that is the male gamete. A spermatozoon joins an ovum to form a zygote...
, egg
Ovum
An ovum is a haploid female reproductive cell or gamete. Both animals and embryophytes have ova. The term ovule is used for the young ovum of an animal, as well as the plant structure that carries the female gametophyte and egg cell and develops into a seed after fertilization...
s, or embryo
Embryo
An embryo is a multicellular diploid eukaryote in its earliest stage of development, from the time of first cell division until birth, hatching, or germination...
s. The Zoological Society of San Diego has established a "Frozen zoo
Frozen zoo
A frozen zoo is a storage facility in which genetic materials taken from animals are gathered and thereafter stored at very low temperatures for optimal preservation over a long period of time...
" to store such samples using modern cryopreservation
Cryopreservation
Cryopreservation is a process where cells or whole tissues are preserved by cooling to low sub-zero temperatures, such as 77 K or −196 °C . At these low temperatures, any biological activity, including the biochemical reactions that would lead to cell death, is effectively stopped...
techniques from more than 355 species, including mammals, reptiles, and birds.
A potential technique for aiding in reproduction of endangered species is interspecific pregnancy, implanting embryos of an endangered species into the womb of a female of a related species, carrying it to term. It has been carried out for the Spanish Ibex
Spanish ibex
The Iberian ibex, Spanish ibex, Spanish wild goat, or Iberian wild goat is a species of ibex with four subspecies. Of these, two can still be found on the Iberian Peninsula, but the remaining two are now extinct. The Portuguese subspecies became extinct in 1892 and the Pyrenean subspecies became...
.
Showy Indian clover, Trifolium amoenum, is an example of a species that was thought to be extinct, but was rediscovered in 1993 by Peter Connors in the form of a single plant at a site in western Sonoma County. Connors harvested seeds and grew specimens of this critically endangered species
Endangered species
An endangered species is a population of organisms which is at risk of becoming extinct because it is either few in numbers, or threatened by changing environmental or predation parameters...
in a controlled environment.
The Wollemi Pine
Wollemi Pine
Wollemia is a genus of coniferous tree in the family Araucariaceae. Wollemia was only known through fossil records until the Australian species Wollemia nobilis was discovered in 1994 in a temperate rainforest wilderness area of the Wollemi National Park in New South Wales, in a remote series of...
is another example of a plant that is being preserved via ex-situ conservation, as they are being grown in nurseries to be sold to the general public.
Drawbacks
Ex-situ conservation, while helpful in man's efforts to sustain and protect our environment, is rarely enough to save a species from extinction. It is to be used as a last resort, or as a supplement to in-situ conservationIn-situ conservation
In-situ conservation is on-site conservation or the conservation of genetic resources in natural populations of plant or animal species, such as forest genetic resources in natural populations of tree species...
because it cannot recreate the habitat as a whole: the entire genetic variation
Genetic variation
Genetic variation, variation in alleles of genes, occurs both within and among populations. Genetic variation is important because it provides the “raw material” for natural selection. Genetic variation is brought about by mutation, a change in a chemical structure of a gene. Polyploidy is an...
of a species, its symbiotic
Symbiosis
Symbiosis is close and often long-term interaction between different biological species. In 1877 Bennett used the word symbiosis to describe the mutualistic relationship in lichens...
counterparts, or those elements which, over time, might help a species adapt to its changing surroundings. Instead, ex-situ conservation removes the species from its natural ecological contexts, preserving it under semi-isolated conditions whereby natural evolution and adaptation processes are either temporarily halted or altered by introducing the specimen to an unnatural habitat. In the case of cryogenic storage methods, the preserved specimen's adaptation processes are frozen altogether. The downside to this is that, when re-released, the species may lack the genetic adaptations and mutations which would allow it to thrive in its ever-changing natural habitat.
Furthermore, ex-situ conservation techniques are often costly, with cryogenic storage being economically infeasible in most cases since species stored in this manner cannot provide a profit but instead slowly drain the financial resources of the government or organization determined to operate them. Seedbank
Seedbank
A seedbank stores seeds as a source for planting in case seed reserves elsewhere are destroyed. It is a type of gene bank. The seeds stored may be food crops, or those of rare species to protect biodiversity. The reasons for storing seeds may be varied...
s are ineffective for certain plant genera
Genus
In biology, a genus is a low-level taxonomic rank used in the biological classification of living and fossil organisms, which is an example of definition by genus and differentia...
with recalcitrant seeds that do not remain fertile for long periods of time. Diseases and pests foreign to the species, to which the species has no natural defense, may also cripple crops of protected plants in ex-situ plantations and in animals living in ex-situ breeding grounds. These factors, combined with the specific environmental needs of many species, some of which are nearly impossible to recreate by man, make ex-situ conservation impossible for a great number of the world's endangered flora and fauna.
See also
- Artificial inseminationArtificial inseminationArtificial insemination, or AI, is the process by which sperm is placed into the reproductive tract of a female for the purpose of impregnating the female by using means other than sexual intercourse or natural insemination...
- In vitro fertilisationIn vitro fertilisationIn vitro fertilisation is a process by which egg cells are fertilised by sperm outside the body: in vitro. IVF is a major treatment in infertility when other methods of assisted reproductive technology have failed...
- Intracytoplasmic sperm injectionIntracytoplasmic sperm injectionIntracytoplasmic sperm injection is an in vitro fertilization procedure in which a single sperm is injected directly into an egg.-Indications:...
- IUCN Red ListIUCN Red ListThe IUCN Red List of Threatened Species , founded in 1963, is the world's most comprehensive inventory of the global conservation status of biological species. The International Union for Conservation of Nature is the world's main authority on the conservation status of species...
- Embryo transferEmbryo transferEmbryo transfer refers to a step in the process of assisted reproduction in which embryos are placed into the uterus of a female with the intent to establish a pregnancy...
- CloningCloningCloning in biology is the process of producing similar populations of genetically identical individuals that occurs in nature when organisms such as bacteria, insects or plants reproduce asexually. Cloning in biotechnology refers to processes used to create copies of DNA fragments , cells , or...
- List of animals that have been cloned
- African Wild Dog ConservancyAfrican Wild Dog ConservancyThe African Wild Dog Conservancy is a non-profit, 501, non-governmental organization, working with local communities, and national and international stakeholders, to conserve the African wild dog through scientific research and education....
- Animal husbandryAnimal husbandryAnimal husbandry is the agricultural practice of breeding and raising livestock.- History :Animal husbandry has been practiced for thousands of years, since the first domestication of animals....
- Captive breedingCaptive breedingCaptive breedingis the process of breeding animals in human controlled environments with restricted settings, such as wildlife reserves, zoos and other conservation facilities; sometimes the process is construed to include release of individual organisms to the wild, when there is sufficient...
- Conservation biologyConservation biologyConservation biology is the scientific study of the nature and status of Earth's biodiversity with the aim of protecting species, their habitats, and ecosystems from excessive rates of extinction...
- Convention on Biological DiversityConvention on Biological DiversityThe Convention on Biological Diversity , known informally as the Biodiversity Convention, is an international legally binding treaty...
- ReintroductionReintroductionReintroduction is the deliberate release of a species into the wild in zones formerly inhabited by said species but where it has disappeared from for a number of reasons, from captivity or relocated from other areas where the species still survives in...
- Wildlife conservationWildlife conservationWildlife conservation is the preservation, protection, or restoration of wildlife and their environment, especially in relation to endangered and vulnerable species. All living non-domesticated animals, even if bred, hatched or born in captivity, are considered wild animals. Wildlife represents all...
- World Conservation UnionWorld Conservation UnionThe International Union for Conservation of Nature and Natural Resources is an international organization dedicated to finding "pragmatic solutions to our most pressing environment and development challenges." The organization publishes the IUCN Red List, compiling information from a network of...
(IUCN) - Asiatic CheetahAsiatic CheetahThe Asiatic Cheetah is now also known as the Iranian Cheetah, as the world's last few are known to survive mostly in Iran. Although recently presumed to be extinct in India, it is also known as the Indian Cheetah...
External links
- Cloning to revive extinct species, May 28, 2002, By Grant Holloway “CNN”
- Reproductive Technologies and Conservation of Endangered Cats
- Louisiana's frozen ark
- ONLINE BOOK: “In situ conservation of livestock and poultry”, 1992, Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations and the United Nations Environment Programme
- "The Challenges of Ex situ Orchid Conservation", Orchid Conservation Coalition
- Botanic Gardens Conservation International - international organisation supporting ex-situ conservation of priority plant species