We need a network of genetic arks to help save Earth’s biodiversity

The sixth mass extinction event of Life on Earth has started. There are now more than 25,000 identified species heading for extinction; many more go out quietly and unseen. Success recovery stories, as beautiful as they are, are few and far between.

The pressure is coming from the size and activities of the human population. In the near past, human population has grown exponentially, increasing more than 4 fold in a century. At the present, human population is starting a demographic transition, slowing down its growth rate. We can expect - or hope - human population to stabilize in less than a century, give or take. This is good news. But the size of the human population is staggering and already stretching Earth's life support system. As we increase our share of a finite planet, the resources for all other forms of life are rapidly diminishing. To make matters worse, climate change is increasing pressure on many wild populations precisely when they have diminishing options to adapt and move, accelerating their demise.

The Svalbard Global Seed Vault, holding seeds of over 5300 plant species from around the world.

Technology might be able to mitigate our impact on Earth’s biodiversity in the future. But many life forms will no longer be around when that happens. Many are already extinct. Many, many more are walking dead.

I am a nature conservationist. I have a passion for the diversity of life and I care deeply for the fate of the thousands of imperiled life forms. Biophilia runs deep in humanity. As many others, I have come to think it is time to face the daunting challenge ahead of us with increasing creativity and to diversify the strategies in the fight to save Life on Earth. Although the in-situ conservation of live ecosystems will always be the best and most efficient way to save wild populations, their genetic diversity and their biotic interactions, it is proving to be insufficient. We only have to look at the current speed of habitat loss in many parts of the world to realize we are loosing this fight and it is no longer enough to rely on in-situ strategies. It increasingly needs other complementary approaches.

In the past, we have kept ex-situ live populations of different species of animals and plats in zoos or botanical gardens as a back-up plan for their conservation. But what before was a back-up plan looks increasingly like the only way we will be able to see live individuals of some endangered species in the near future. The problem is that there aren’t enough institutions or resources around to hold breeding, minimum viable populations of but a few charismatic, manageable species. We have to find still more complementary strategies.

I have come to believe that technological advances in biosciences are a fundamental piece in the struggle to squeeze as much of life as we possibly can through the current biodiversity bottleneck. In 100 years, a stable human population and new technological developments that decrease our impact on the environment might take us to the point where we can start returning more and more space to nature and restoring wild ecosystems. But we are running a high risk of having lost the species to populate them when we get to that point.

The Frozen Ark, an example of a genetic bank for endangered species.

It is time we invest seriously in having ex-situ deep-freeze genetic samples of enough individuals of endangered species to make up surrogate genetic minimum viable populations. These would work as a safety net for the difficult times ahead. I increasingly feel the only way there will be a vaquita or Sumatran rhino in the future is if we save genetic samples of as many individuals as we possibly can. I trust that technological advances will allow these genetic banks to help keep small live populations, otherwise inviable in the long run, viable by allowing the injection of genetic diversity from time to time and fending off genetic drift. These genetic bank populations would allow the survival of small relict populations just long enough for we to sort our mess and give global biodiversity a fighting chance. The idea of injecting diversity into live populations using ex-situ genetic material is not new and is already being tried with the black-footed ferret. For many species, creating genetic arks that hold deep-freeze genetic minimum viable populations will probably be the only way to take them through the bottleneck that Life on Earth is facing right now.

Creating a world wide network of genetic banks holding minimum viable populations of endangered species would involve creating not one but several, geographically spread out, genetic arks; instead of a male and female of each species we would safeguard the genome of as many individuals as we could.

This in not a new idea and there are already initiatives to preserve the genome of many different species, with several projects working for this end. There is a growing number of institutions, from zoos to universities to non-governmental organizations, working to save as many genetic samples as possible. The best known example of such a conservation effort is The Svalbard Global Seed Vault, working only with plant seeds, currently holding seeds of over 5300 species of plants. Other examples are the Fozen Ark in the UK and the Frozen Zoo, the genetic bank for endangered species of the San Diego Zoo. The Frozen Zoo has the sad honour of holding the genetic material of the po’ouli, an extinct Hawaiian bird species.

Frozen Zoo, the genetic bank for endangered species of the San Diego Zoo. It has the sad honour of holding the genetic material of the po’ouli, an extinct Hawaiian bird species.

But these and other initiatives have been, to my knowledge, not fully coordinated among them and not large enough to face the growing challenge of averting mass extinctions. They can also be quite territorial between them, refusing to duplicate and share material. We need to step up these efforts; the IUCN-International Union for the Conservation of Nature, the UNEP-United Nations Environmental Program and individual countries should get involved and help in the creation of a world wide genetic ark like the Svalbard Global Seed Vault but not only for plants, for as much of biodiversity as possible. And we need to concentrate not on having the samples of 2 or 3 individuals of a species in a single location, but of holding samples of 50 or 100 individuals, of as many endangered species as possible and, for safety reasons, at more than one location. We need to work to deep freeze and safeguard intra-specific genetic diversity, the raw material of evolution.

We already have many scientists out there in the field working with endangered species, be it looking for the dung of Sumatran rhinos or monitoring the population of vaquitas. What we need is for every study to be an opportunity to take a genetic sample of those live animals and for scientists to know there will be a place for them to deposit their samples. We need funding institutions to start making it a pre-requisite that genetic samples of endangered species will be saved whenever they fund a project that directly works with them. They might even start funding rapid genetic surveys, where cheap bulk genetic samples of different locations and habitats are collected and deep freezed without knowing what are in them but, crucially, before the diversity of those locations disappears, In the future, new technology will make it easier to ascertain what those samples hold. For this to happen we need governments around the world to either start their own biodiversity arks or to collaborate with supra-national initiatives. And we need this to be done not as a last resort measure but as an intentional, premeditated strategy, politically led at the highest level.

A genetic bank of as many individuals as possible of the critically endangered vaquita might be the only chance for the long term survival of the species. The population is down to less than 30.

We have little time to act. What I am advocating is not the solution in itself, it is a complementary strategy to saving habitats and wild populations. But I ask that besides looking after natural areas we save the genome of as many vaquitas as we can. A genetic bank of as many individuals as possible of the critically endangered vaquita might be the only chance for the long term survival of the species. The population is down to less than 30. The same fateful story can be written of the Sumatran rhinos.

I have used these two species as examples because they are species of animals with fast disappearing populations that will likely be extinct in a few years. It’s hard to explain how sad this makes me. I desperately want it not to happen, as most of you do. And I believe that a genetic bank of as many individuals as possible is the only way to save them for the future. Right now the situation is so drastic that we probably need samples of all the few dozen animals still alive for each of these species.

I understand that such strategy might be seen of a way of accepting further losses of live populations and entire species and diverting precious resources from other conservation projects. I share the belief that nothing can be a true surrogate to live, dynamic, evolving biotic communities and that the effort to protect land for nature conservation has to be the cornerstone of a viable long term strategy. A world wide network of genetic arks should not be seen as a substitute but as complementary approach. The strategy need to be able to raise extra funding and not consume scarce conservation resources.

I love Life on Earth. I am fascinated, mesmerized, elevated by it. I believe this to be a common passion. Many of you share it. I have come to think that genetic arks, deep-freeze banks of the genome of enough individuals of a species to make up a genetic minimum viable population, will prove fundamental in the overall strategy to safeguard our most important asset, Earth’s Biodiversity, and save it to the future. In this way, when Earth’s turbulent times ahead have quieted down and our children and grand-children or their children can start restoring ecosystems, they will have as many pieces of the puzzle as possible.