A team of scientists is trying to establish a global DNA bank for endangered animals to restore earlier levels of genetic diversity within species
https://abcnews.go.com/Technology/story?id=98919&page=1Although banks containing animal genes are scattered throughout the world, this would be the first international effort to collect and compile tissue samples from all known endangered animal species.
Final Vestiges
Scientists currently must rely on studying fossils and other bits of data to understand extinct animals, like dinosaurs and woolly mammoths. A DNA bank would provide future generations with a more complete and accurate record of now-threatened species, such as black rhinos, giant pandas and tigers.
Oliver Ryder, a geneticist at the Center for Reproduction of Endangered Species, Zoological Society of San Diego, and lead author of the proposal, which was published in last week’s issue of Science, says, “The future will find uses for the information obtainable from DNA banks that we cannot presently imagine.”
While Jurassic Park-like recreations are remote at this point, experiments are under way to freeze the eggs and sperm of endangered species in a process called “cryopreservation.” An embryo may then be implanted into a non-endangered host animal, thus preserving the donor species.
If DNA samples are collected before a species’ population drops to dangerous lows, Ryder and his colleagues additionally believe that preserved cell lines for endangered animals could be replicated. Such nuclear replacement cloning might be able to restore earlier levels of genetic diversity within a species.
Ryder hopes that information from the samples could be available to scientists and conservationists worldwide via a single Web site, perhaps run by a multinational organization.
Project Could Save Species
Many scientists, including Ryder and Rodrigo Medellin, a professor at the Institute of Ecology, National University of Mexico, believe a world DNA bank may also save certain species from imminent extinction.
For example, California researchers already are using genetic information to help save the California condor, a species placed in captivity to prevent its extinction. By analyzing DNA samples, conservationists are able to identify kinship among the birds, which aids in the prevention of inbreeding and the spread of heritable diseases.
Conservationists also are attempting to revive Przewalski wild horse populations throughout the world, particularly in the majestic animal’s native land of Mongolia. In this case, breeders are attempting to preserve an extremely limited gene pool derived from 12 horses that were captured in the wild.
As science and technology advance, information in DNA animal banks might assist medicine and pharmaceutical development by helping to explain how certain genes work.
Medellin adds, “Maybe in the future, when we are wiser and perhaps fewer (in number), we might be able to do something to recover lost species.” "
Endangered Species' Genetic Diversity Explains their Decline
"Genetic diversity is a key component to the long-term survival of a population," Janna Willoughby, a then-doctoral student in wildlife genetics, said in a statement. "The approach we developed identifies populations with limited genetic diversity that isn't going to be enough to allow the population to persist over time. We found that this method performs significantly better than current methods for identifying species in need of conservation efforts."
Willoughby, along with Andrew DeWoody, a professor of genetics, studied positions of genes on chromosomes in order to estimate genetic diversity loss among wildlife populations. From this they were able to develop a statistical approach for estimating the number of generations remaining before a species' genetic variation reaches a low threshold.
According to their study, researchers found a reduced genetic variation in threatened species. They attributed this to circumstances such as inbreeding, which can result when population sizes are small.
The researchers also acknowledged the many methods for determining that a species is either threatened or endangered, including the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUNC). They examined the IUNC's Red List to see how effective it was at identifying poor genetic diversity in species; however, the researchers discovered that the organization's criteria was not closely related to genetic diversity.
"The criteria of many conservation organizations were formulated before the availability of genetic data we have today," DeWoody said in the release. "But genetic methodology has advanced so rapidly that factoring in genetic diversity is now pretty straightforward." "
My comment: This is the best scientific evidence against the evolutionary theory. Genetic entropy is a fact and it's happening all over nature, including us human beings. There are 561,119 gene-disease associations in human genome at the whole world level and the number of random beneficial mutations is close to ZERO. Evolution has no mechanism because any change in organisms is based on rapid and efficient epigenetic regulation of existing biological information OR gradual but inevitable corruption of information. Both adaptation and information loss occur very rapidly. Stories about millions of years of evolution are pure pseudoscience. Don't get lost.
