As an ecologist of ice age giants, I long ago came to terms with the fact that I will never look my study organisms in the eye.
I will never observe black-bear-sized beavers through binoculars in their natural habitats, build experimental exclosures to test the effects of mastodons on plants, or even observe a giant ground sloth in a zoo.
As a conservation paleoecologist, I study the natural experiments of the past—like climate change and extinction—to better understand the ecology of a warming, fragmented world. Admitedly, part of the appeal of the ice age past is the challenge of reconstructing long-disappeared landscapes from fragments like pollen, tiny fragments of charcoal, and bits of leaves preserved in lakes. In the absence of mammoths, for example, I rely instead on spores of fungi that once inhabited their dung.
De-extinction could change that. On Friday, a group of geneticists, conservationists, journalists, and others convened in Washington, D.C. to discuss resurrecting extinct species, including the woolly mammoth. De-extinction sounds like science fiction, but it’s rooted in very real conservation concerns. With the sequencing of the woolly mammoth genome complete and recent advancements in biotechnology, the question of whether to clone extinct species like mastodons, dodos, or the Shasta ground sloth is rapidly becoming more of a question of should, rather than how. The latter isn’t straightforward, and involves the integration of a number of cutting edge disciplines, but I’d like to focus on the former: should we clone woolly mammoths?
A growing problem I’ve had (and one which Brian Switek raises in a recent post at National Geographic) is that the de-extinction proposals are Big Ideas, but they they’re often shallow when it comes to ecology. Even the concept of “de-extinction” itself is misleading. Successfully cloning an animal is one thing; rescuing it from the black hole-like pull of extinction is another. Decades of conservation biology research has tried to determine the careful calculus of how many individuals and how much land are needed for a species to survive without major intervention, accounting for its needs for food, habitat, and other resources.
Mammoths have been extinct on continents for over ten thousand years (though dwarf versions survived into the time of the ancient Egyptians on isolated Arctic islands). Even so, the fossil record has yielded rich clues about ecology. All ethical considerations aside, from a conservation biology standpoint, what does it mean to be a mammoth?
The Latest Bing News on:
Cloning Woolly Mammoths
- Historical Extinct Animals: A Glimpse into the Paston April 22, 2024 at 4:59 pm
Conservationists attempted to save the species through cloning efforts, but the first cloned bucardo ... of preserving native habitats and protecting vulnerable species. The woolly mammoth was a ...
- Bringing back the woolly mammoth to roam Earth again. Is it even possible? | The Excerpton April 18, 2024 at 1:45 pm
A company is at the heart of an evolving science that aims to see ancient animals return in the name of preserving and promoting biodiversity.
- The race to resurrect the dodoon April 10, 2024 at 5:00 pm
Beth Shapiro: Instead of cloning, what we’re actually doing is taking living ... And so, in addition to the dodo, Colossal is also doing this de-extinction work on the woolly mammoth as well as the ...
The Latest Google Headlines on:
Cloning Woolly Mammoths
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The Latest Bing News on:
De-extinction
- A rare mammal with a trunk-like snout and webbed feet: The Iberian desman faces extinctionon April 24, 2024 at 7:34 am
The ‘Spanish platypus’ is unique to the Iberian Peninsula and a jewel of evolution that has lost up to 70% of the geographical range it occupied three decades ago ...
- How a Cloned Ferret Inspired a DNA Bank for Endangered Specieson April 22, 2024 at 5:22 am
The birth of a cloned black-footed ferret named Elizabeth Ann, and her two new sisters, has sparked a new pilot program to preserve the tissues of hundreds of endangered species “just in case” ...
- Vaquita Survey 2024: The Search For The World's Rarest Mammal Is Onon April 19, 2024 at 7:44 am
Vaquita porpoises live along a small strip of Mexico’s Upper Gulf of California, which will be the focus of the 2024 survey. Two ships will carry a team of experienced observers as the survey goes in ...
- Reviving the Past, Safeguarding the Future: Challenges and Innovations in Cell Culture for De-Extinctionon April 19, 2024 at 1:34 am
In this webinar, our expert speakers will discuss the cell culture aspects of the de-extinction project, from making a large number of precision genome edits in single cells, growing and expanding ...
- The US scientists bringing back the Woolly Mammoth - Tech & Science Daily podcaston April 18, 2024 at 5:00 pm
Colossal Biosciences explain the complex science behind ‘de-extinction’ and reveal their target date for the first woolly mammoth calf. It has been some 4,000 years since woolly mammoths ...
- Bringing back the woolly mammoth to roam Earth again. Is it even possible? | The Excerpton April 18, 2024 at 1:45 pm
A company is at the heart of an evolving science that aims to see ancient animals return in the name of preserving and promoting biodiversity.
- Colossal Announces $7.5M in New Investments in Ancient DNA Academic Researchon April 17, 2024 at 3:14 pm
Colossal Biosciences’ academic investments include partnerships with Stockholm University, the University of Potsdam, the University of California Santa Cruz, the University of Alaska, McMaster ...
- Where the Xerces Blue Butterfly Was Lost, Its Closest Relative Is Now Filling Inon April 16, 2024 at 6:14 am
More than 80 years after the iconic Xerces Blue butterfly vanished from San Francisco, researchers have analyzed century-old specimens of the butterfly to track down its closest living relative, the ...
- The Tasmanian tiger might be extinct but Aussies are determined to find it or bring it backon April 14, 2024 at 4:32 pm
Pask has raised $15 million for a de-extinction project in partnership with American company Colossal Biosciences, which counts Leonardo DiCaprio, Paris Hilton and even the C.I.A. among its backers.
- What ‘de-extinction’ of woolly mammoths can teach us: a Q&A with evolutionary biologist Beth Shapiroon April 3, 2024 at 5:00 pm
Now, we stand on the brink of an ambitious new era in how humans may transfigure life around us: by pursuing the science of de-extinction, or the resurrection of species once lost to this world.
The Latest Google Headlines on:
De-extinction
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