Ex Situ And In Situ Conservatio Flashcards
What is ex situ conservation
The removal of animals from their natural habitat into captivity for their long term conservation, such as to breed for reintroduction or to maintain a genetic stock
What is in situ conservation
The actions taken to preserve a species in its natural habitat
Examples of ex situ conservation of flora
Botanic gardens
Seed banks (domestic plant varieties and wild plants).
Preservation of plant tissue (cryopreserved)
Example of seed bank
Millennium seed bank partnership.
Kew botanic Gardens in London.
What does the millennium seed bank partnership do
Store seeds of all uks native plant species hoping to store 25% of the worlds plants by 2020.
What is the priority setting in the millennium seed bank partnership
Focus on species vulnerable to climate change like alpine, island and dryland, arid locations, endemic species, economically important, endangered, human values
Example of agrobuodviersity
Mexico’s tomato’s.
Effort to document traditional tomato varieties, in search or those that are high nutrition and climate resilient.
Ensure they are protected in fields and in botanic gardens.
What is agobiodiversity
A sub-set of biodiversity that results from both natural selection processes and selection by farmers over millennia
Examples of ex situ conservation of fauna
Zoos
Aquariums
Wildlife parks
What is the point of ex situ conservation
Entertainment
Systematic collections
Arks of diversity
What do conservation centres do
Education
Research
Recreation
Associations with standards and monitoring
Example of conservation ex situ
Blackpool zoo
How many conservation organisation does Blackpool zoo support
9
Which conservation organisations does Blackpool zoo support
Gorilla organisation Orangutan foundation Biodiversity and elephant consecration trust 21at century tiger World parrot trust World land trust CBD habitat foundation SAN Martin titi monkey
Who owns Blackpool zoo
Parque Reineunidos - owner of 61 zoos, attraction parks and water parks
How many animals in Blackpool zoo
> 1,500
What bird is critically endangered in Blackpool zoo
Northern bald ibis
What are private hobbyist collections
Ex situ breeding of species for personal, rather than commercial or conservation objectives
Why can private collections be useful
Potential reservoirs of rare species and have the potential to be bought for consecration.
Not a part of mainstream consecration efforts.
Example of a private collection
Spix Macaws.
In 1987; 19 known captive in zoos, 1 in wild.
2000s: two large private collections purchased by conservation groups.
2015: 110 captive birds and plans for breeding and reintroduction.
What is commercial breeding
Ex situ beeeding of species for commercial rather than conservation objectives
Why does commercial breeding have ex situ implications
Potential reservoirs of rare species.
Not a part of mainstream consecration efforts.
Example of commercial breeding for crocodiles
Siamese crocodile. Native to SE Asia. Critically endangered and extinct in the wild across most of its range. >1 million in capacity for leather. 2010: 799 farms in Thailand alone. Some pure breeds left.
Problems with commerical breeding
Hybridisation and artificial selection of the biggest crocodiles
Example of commercial breeding for tiger
South China tiger
Critically endangered and probably EW.
1950: 4000 individuals, not sited in 25 years.
2002: save china’s tigers begin work to rewild tigers.
11 cubs and training wild skills in South Africa.
Release sites preliminarily identified.
Questions about viability.
What is the aims for ex situ conservation
Insurance against extinction. Reservoirs for reintroduction. Stock for breeding new varieties. Research animal behaviour. Education. Fundraising for in situ conservation. Recreation.
How many species are EW
64
Examples of EW creatures
Franklin tree
Viviparous tree snail
Pete David deer
What does reservoirs for reintroduction require
Genetic diversity. Assisted reproductive technology. Eliminate genetic defects. Control spread of diseases. Release strategy.
Why do you need genetic diversity
For a healthy population, get rid of inbreeding attributes, huge potential for spread of disease
Example of reintroduction into the wild bison
European Bison. Historically widespread across Europe. 1927: EW. 54 individuals in captivity. 1957: reintroduction. Today, 1800 individuals in wild, vulnerable.
Example of reintroduction of Lynx
Iberian Lynx. 1986: endangered. 2002: critically endangered (200 individuals) 2015: endangered. 2005: captive breeding success 2009: reintroduction. 2013: 300+ wild individuals. 5 centres. 96 captive. 32 founders and 64 born in captivity.
Examples of public education
Outreach activities.
Information panels.
Education talks.
Zoos.
How many schools visited London zoo last year
118,510
How many people visited the European association of zoos and aquaria (EAZA)
> 140 million
How does fundraising for in situ conservation work
Most zoos also support in situ conservation.
3.3 million euros raised for EAZA campaigns.
What does research entail
Animal behaviour. Endocrinology. Nutrition. Veterinary science. Environmental education.
How do you design an ex-situ collection
Sampling of wild genetic diversity.
Maintenance of healthy genetic stock.
Ability to survive in the wild (for reintroduction)
Ethical standards.
What does genetic stock require
Understanding of diversity.
Sampling to reflect natural genetic diversity.
90% diversity = >20 founder stocks.
Example of genetic optimisation of plants
Xishuqngbanna.
Supports 10% of china’s angiosperm flora on less than 0.2% of land. Ensures total genetic diversity of wild populations is captured by the least number of individuals in the collection. Next generation sequencing tech to deliver a genotyping.
Questions about genetic optimisation
Selection critical for populations?
How to manage the populations?
How many generations should the population remain in the collection?
What genetic difficulties can captive breeding result in
Inbreeding.
Loss of genetic diversity.
Accumulation of deleterious mutations/alleles/ genes.
Genetic adaptation to captivity.
Example of inbreeding in captivity
Spekes gazelle.
Captive population can be maintained but we can only use 10% of them if we want to repopulate the wild.
What is a gorilla stud book
For each species in capacity contains information of their birth and death, parents, location and transfers
What survival in the wild difficulties can captivity cause
Loss of hunting ability. Predator blindness. Locomotion deficits. Loss of natural social behaviour. Imprinting. Stereotypic behaviour
Example of alternative method to enable reintroduction
Whooping cranes.
1941: 21 wild and 2 captive.
2015: 603 including 161 captive.
Use drones and suits to look like birds.
What are the five freedoms (required ethical standards)
Undue fear, stress and distress. Pain, injury, disease and parasites. Hunger and thirst. Discomfort, loneliness and confinement. Behave naturally (mating, flying, burrowing)
What is zoo enrichment
The approaches and principles adopted to improve the well-being of captive animals
Examples of zoo enrichment
Food Habitat Sensory Training Mental Social Interactive
What does captive breeding with intent to reintroduce require
A release strategy
What is needed for a good release strategy
Adequate habitats.
Control of previous threats.
Graduated release strategy.
Long term monitoring (behavioural, genetic, population). How do we remove underlying drivers that lead them to become threatened?
Example of an animal with a good release strategy
Golden mantled howler monkey, Belize has a community baboon sanctuary
What is taxonomic bias
Many zoo species are not threatened and many species are overlooked if they are non charismatic and have demanding husbandry.
Example of a non charismatic species
Sunda pangolin
Example of a not threatened species in zoos
Rainbow lorikeet
What did the study in zoos find
Motivation for visiting -
Fun day out (56%)
Sees animals (53.3%)
Spend family time (47.2%).
There was some positive evidence of biodiversity understanding <10% increase in awareness.
Responding from Africa and Asia showed smaller changes in understanding.
4.5% leave saying that supporting zoos supports biodiversity. (Increase of 1%)
Why is in situ probably better
It achieves comparable rates of population growth to those seen in established captive breeding programmes.
Per capita costs for effective in situ conservation are consistently lower than those of maintenance in captivity. Not viable for EW and CR.
