Species extinction is one of the disorders plaguing the planet. It is estimated that over the past 100 years, the rate of species extinction is 50 to 1,000 times faster than what would occur through natural processes.
It has been documented that a quarter of mammal species are at risk of extinction today. In Ecuador, nearly 1,800 plant species and 1,252 vertebrate species have some degree of vulnerability, including 217 mammal species, 238 bird species, 276 reptile species, and 521 amphibian species.
However, the extinction of individual species does not occur individually, population by population, but is caused by the deterioration of the ecosystems and biotic communities of which these populations are a part. Ecosystems such as dry forests and wetlands are highly threatened in Ecuador; both due to agribusiness expansion such as banana and pitahaya monocultures and upland shrimp farms. It is possible that in these ecosystems there is an accelerated process of local extinction of flora and fauna, in some cases endemic species such as birds typical of dry tropical forests.
To tackle the problem of species extinction, Colossal Biosciences has been thinking about reviving three paradigmatic animal species (in the first phase) that have become extinct in the past, using the tools of molecular biology. The company has two co-founders. The former founded several enterprise AI software companies focused on critical infrastructure, space and defense before joining Colossal; also virtual games. While his fellow co-founder leads a synthetic biology platform. Both have proposed resurrecting some species of extinct animals as a measure to address the extinction crisis, joining forces with several conservation organizations.
When we entered their website, we found this statement: “extinction is a colossal problem facing the world, and Colossal is a company that intends to solve it. By combining the science of genetics with the business of discovery, we aim to reignite nature’s ancient heartbeat. Take another look at the wavy mammoth thundering over the tundra. Advances in the Economics of Biology and Medicine through Genetics. To make humanity more human. And awaken the lost wilderness of Earth. So that we and our planet can breathe better.”
To explain the science of extinction, Colossal argues that the problem of extinction is very large and it is a human problem, so the solution must also be human, combining conservation and high technology. In this sense, Colossal is working to restore iconic species such as the dodo, Tasmanian tiger and woolly mammoth from extinction, and claims that the deployment of a range of technologies will bring these species back from extinction and restore their populations.
Will Colossal’s activities help reduce the problem of species extinction?
The first aspect is that extinction is not an isolated event, it is a process driven by a number of causes, but primarily the progression of corporate power over territories that protects populations of flora, fauna and microorganisms that face a certain degree of danger. either because its habitat has been reduced, or because its population is very small and faces problems of genetic drift, or because it has to compete with invasive species (generally introduced by human activity). Another cause is climate change.
Findings from a new analysis from the University of Connecticut show that climate change could lead to the extinction of one in six species of animals and plants, and that as the planet warms in the future, species will disappear at a faster rate. Extinction risk will be greatest in South America, Australia and New Zealand, regardless of taxonomic group. The tropics will be more vulnerable to local extinctions caused by climate change (Urban, 2015).
How do these facts fit in with plans for the return of species that inhabited the planet in the past, before extinction?
Let’s remember the woolly mammoth, which became extinct 12 thousand years ago, at the end of the Pleistocene, when the climate warmed and the habitats typical of this animal disappeared. Now that the climate is rapidly warming, where will the newly resurrected mammoths graze?
The dodo, a flightless bird endemic to the island of Mauritius, became extinct in 1681 due to competition with other introduced species. If the drive to eradicate the dodo is successful, will the threats that led to its extinction disappear? We can ask the same about the Tasmanian tiger.
Another view from the point of view of molecular biology is from Novák (2018), who creates the category of “evolutionarily lethargic species”; a term used for species “falsely thought to be extinct that actually persist in the form of cryopreserved tissues and cultured cells”. They are multicellular individuals of a species that can no longer reproduce without help. They didn’t die out, Novak argues, because they persist as single-celled individuals, but they don’t actively reproduce, which means they don’t evolve. There are only a handful of evolutionarily lethargic species such as the northern white rhinoceros, the bucardo (a species related to the ibex), the Yangtze river dolphin, the Pinta island giant tortoise, two species of frogs: the stomach frog (the only known animal capable of incubating eggs in the stomach , turn off digestive enzymes using a substance produced by eggs) and the frog Ecnomiohyla rabborum, originally from Panama, the last specimen of which died in captures in 2016, and three species of snails native to the Pacific Islands.
Cloning the bucarda (from cultured fibroblasts that had been cryopreserved) represented the first recovery of an evolutionarily lethargic species, Novak says; Then it was experimented with other species, but does that mean the population will return to its natural state? Will the environmental, ecological or social conditions that led these species to their near-extinction status disappear? Or does it simply mean a scientific challenge that may (or may not) prove successful?
Major scientific and economic efforts on extinction could be used to reverse the root causes that lead to the mass extinction of species and ecosystems, such as climate change, but these causes are too closely linked to capitalist development.
sources:
JB Novak, Extinction. Genes (9): 548; doi:10.3390/genes9110548, 2018
MC Urban Science. 348, (6234): 571-573 doi: 10.1126/science.aaa4984, 2015 Ver: https://colossal.com
“Extinction is a colossal problem facing the world, and Colossal is the company to solve it.
solve,” the company boasts.
Image: A fish demon from the pre-Columbian Moche culture in Peru
Originally published in Biodiversity, Sustenance and Cultures Magazine
