Date: August 25, 2016
Source: University of California
- Santa Barbara
Can the woolly mammoth be brought
back from the dead? Scientists say it's only a matter of time.
In fact this year, the
International Union for Conservation of Nature issued its first official set of
guidelines on resurrecting extinct species. What's more, university research
labs and non-governmental agencies have projects in motion to bring back
extinct species. But is all of this a good idea?
A new paper by UC Santa Barbara
researchers explores de-extinction -- the process of resurrecting an extinct
species -- as a potential win for conservation and suggests how to make it so.
In an analysis in the
journal Functional Ecology, UCSB ecologist Douglas McCauley and colleagues
recommend several ways in which the science of de-extinction would have to
evolve in order to make it maximally benefit ecological communities and
ecosystems.
"The idea of de-extinction
raises a fundamental and philosophical question: Are we doing it to create a
zoo or recreate nature?" said co-author Benjamin Halpern, director of
UCSB's National Center for Ecological Analysis and Synthesis. "Both are
reasonable answers, but restoring species to a natural state will be a much,
much harder endeavor. We offer guidelines for how to make ecological
de-extinction more successful and how to avoid creating 'eco-zombies.' "
Bringing back species useful for
conservation requires big-picture thinking. For example, the grassland
ecosystem in which the mammoth once lived looks totally different today. For a
variety of reasons -- human population expansion among them -- some areas where
these creatures once roamed cannot be restored to their former ecology.
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