Current State-of-the-Art

Biodiversity is necessary to maintain ecosystems, supply chains, and the health and persistence of all species, including humans. Engineering biology can help to reduce biodiversity loss through less-invasive and more-sustainable monitoring and by ensuring that we can protect and support the resilience of keystone species and those that are threatened, particularly due to climate change and human activities.

Measurement technologies (i.e., multi-omics techniques) could be leveraged to rapidly catalog existing biodiversity in field environments with regard to genetic expression, metabolomics, and species composition. By documenting microbial species and their strain level diversity and identifying keystone functional guilds within a given ecosystem, we can support foundational microbiomes that are essential, designing and engineering networks, pathways, and heterogeneity to support at-risk ecosystems and keystone guilds. Genome monitoring and editing can also help to conserve biodiversity by tracking at-risk organisms, informing adaptation approaches or genetic rescue, and helping to limit or prevent poaching.1Phelps, M. P., Seeb, L. W., & Seeb, J. E. (2020). Transforming ecology and conservation biology through genome editing. Conservation Biology, 34(1), 54–65. View Publication.

Breakthrough Capabilities & Milestones

Enable monitoring of ecosystem health with bio-sensors and -reporters.

*Zimmerman, S. J., Aldridge, C. L., & Oyler-McCance, S. J. (2020). An empirical comparison of population genetic analyses using microsatellite and SNP data for a species of conservation concern. BMC Genomics, 21(1), 382. https://doi.org/10.1186/s12864-020-06783-9

Enable strengthening and protection of keystone and threatened species.

*Paez, S., Kraus, R. H. S., Shapiro, B., Gilbert, M. T. P., Jarvis, E. D., & VERTEBRATE GENOMES PROJECT CONSERVATION GROUP. (2022). Reference genomes for conservation. Science, 377(6604), 364–366. https://doi.org/10.1126/science.abm8127

**Kaczmarczyk, D. (2019). Techniques based on the polymorphism of microsatellite DNA as tools for conservation of endangered populations. Applied Ecology and Environmental Research, 17(2), 1599–1615. https://doi.org/10.15666/aeer/1702_15991615

Footnotes

  1. Phelps, M. P., Seeb, L. W., & Seeb, J. E. (2020). Transforming ecology and conservation biology through genome editing. Conservation Biology, 34(1), 54–65. https://doi.org/10.1111/cobi.13292
  2. Khan, H. A., Arif, I. A., Bahkali, A. H., Al Farhan, A. H., & Al Homaidan, A. A. (2008). Bayesian, maximum parsimony and UPGMA models for inferring the phylogenies of antelopes using mitochondrial markers. Evolutionary Bioinformatics Online, 4, 263–270. https://doi.org/10.4137/ebo.s934
  3. Arif, I. A., Khan, H. A., Bahkali, A. H., Al Homaidan, A. A., Al Farhan, A. H., Al Sadoon, M., & Shobrak, M. (2011). DNA marker technology for wildlife conservation. Saudi Journal of Biological Sciences, 18(3), 219–225. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.sjbs.2011.03.002
  4. Zimmerman, S. J., Aldridge, C. L., & Oyler-McCance, S. J. (2020). An empirical comparison of population genetic analyses using microsatellite and SNP data for a species of conservation concern. BMC Genomics, 21(1), 382. https://doi.org/10.1186/s12864-020-06783-9
  5. Bier, E. (2022). Gene drives gaining speed. Nature Reviews Genetics, 23(1), 5–22. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41576-021-00386-0
  6. Conklin, B. R. (2019). On the road to a gene drive in mammals. Nature, 566(7742), 43–45. https://doi.org/10.1038/d41586-019-00185-y
Last updated: September 19, 2022 Back