Maximizing the potential for living cell banks to contribute to global conservation priorities
Open accessAbstract
Although cryobanking represents a powerful conservation tool, a lack of standardized information on the species represented in global cryobanks, and inconsistent prioritization of species for future sampling, hinder the conservation potential of cryobanking, resulting in missed conservation opportunities. We analyze the representation of amphibian, bird, mammal, and reptile species within the San Diego Zoo Wildlife Alliance Frozen Zoo® living cell collection (as of April 2019) and implement a qualitative framework for the prioritization of species for future sampling. We use global conservation assessment schemes (including the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) Red List of Threatened Species™, the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES), the Alliance for Zero Extinction, the EDGE of Existence, and Climate Change Vulnerability), and opportunities for sample acquisition from the global zoo and aquarium community, to identify priority species for cryobanking. We show that 965 species, including 5% of all IUCN Red List “Threatened” amphibians, birds, mammals, and reptiles, were represented in the collection and that sampling from within existing zoo and aquarium collections could increase representation to 16.6% (by sampling an additional 707 “Threatened” species). High‐priority species for future cryobanking efforts include the whooping crane (Grus americana), crested ibis (Nipponia nippon), and Siberian crane (Leucogeranus leucogeranus). Each of these species are listed under every conservation assessment scheme and have ex situ populations available for sampling. We also provide species prioritizations based on subsets of these assessment schemes together with sampling opportunities from the global zoo and aquarium community. We highlight the difficulties in obtaining in situ samples, and encourage the formation of a global cryobanking database together with the establishment of new cryobanks in biodiversity‐rich regions.
The claims and statistics of this paper haven’t been checked yet.
Run the check — free, no account needed. It reads the open-access text and checks the sources it cites.
Integrity signals
Registry
Cites
Statistics
Claims the paper makes
The claims and statistics of this paper haven’t been checked yet.
Run the check — free, no account needed. It reads the open-access text and checks the sources it cites.
Claims other papers make about this one
Each is checked against this paper’s own text: does it say what the citing paper says it does?
The existence of biobanks and available germplasm from endangered and extinct-in-the-wild species creates opportunities to reintroduce genetic potential that does not currently exist in the extant population.
“The existence of biobanks and available germplasm from endangered and extinct-in-the-wild species thus creates opportunities to reintroduce genetic potential that does not currently exist in the extant population [88][89][90][91].”
From The Concept of Agency, Animal Wellbeing, and the Practical Realities of Ex Situ Breeding Programs in Zoos and Aquariums (2024) · cites this paper as [90]
Self-check
Percentages, sums and reported differences re-computed from the paper’s own numbers.
The self-check needs the paper’s full text.
No citation lists for this paper
No citation lists for this paper yet — checked again daily.
References 37 · Cited by 37
Research works printed but not linked: 26
- Allendorf, F. W., & Leary, R. F. (1986). Heterozygosity and fitness in natural populations of animals. In M. E. Soulé (Ed.), Conservation biology: The science of scarcity and diversity (pp. 57-76). Sinauer.
- Allentoft, M., & O'Brien, J. (2010). Global amphibian declines, loss of genetic diversity and fitness: A review. Diversity, 2(1), 47-71.
- Ballou, J. D. (1992). Potential contribution of cryopreserved germ plasm to the preservation of genetic diversity and conservation of endan- gered species in captivity. Cryobiology, 29(1), 19-25.
- Ballou, J. D., Lacy, R. C., Traylor-Holzer, K., Bauman, K., Ivy, J. A., & Asa, C. (2022). Strategies for establishing and using genome resource banks to protect genetic diversity in conservation breeding programs. Zoo Biology, 42, 175-184. https://doi.org/10.1002/zoo.21741 · DOI
- Benirschke, K. (1984). The frozen zoo concept. Zoo Biology, 3(4), 325-328.
- Bolton, R. L., Mooney, A., Pettit, M. T., Bolton, A. E., Morgan, L., Drake, G. J., Appeltant, R., Walker, S. L., Gillis, J. D., & Hvilsom, C. (2022). Resurrecting biodiversity: Advanced assisted reproductive technologies and biobanking. Reproduction & Fertility, 3(3), 121.
- Clarke, A. G. (2009). The Frozen Ark Project: The role of zoos and aquariums in preserving the genetic material of threatened animals. International Zoo Yearbook, 43(1), 222-230.
- da Silva, R., Pearce-Kelly, P., Zimmerman, B., Knott, M., Foden, W., & Conde, D. A. (2019). Assessing the conservation potential of fish and corals in aquariums globally. Journal for Nature Conservation, 48, 1-11.
- Foden, W., Mace, G., Vié, J.-C., Angulo, A., Butchart, S., DeVantier, L., Dublin, H., Gutsche, A., Stuart, S., & Turak, E. (2008). Species susceptibility to climate change impacts. In J.-C. Vié, C. Hilton- Taylor, & S. N. Stuart (Eds.), The 2008 review of the IUCN red list of threatened species. IUCN.
- Folch, J., Cocero, M. J., Chesné, P., Alabart, J. L., Domínguez, V., Cognié, Y., Roche, A., Fernández-Árias, A., Martí, J. I., Sánchez, P., Echegoyen, E., Beckers, J. F., Bonastre, A. S., & Vignon, X. (2009). First birth of an animal from an extinct subspecies (Capra pyrenaica pyrenaica) by cloning. Theriogenology, 71(6), 1026-1034.
- Gardali, T., Seavy, N. E., DiGaudio, R. T., & Comrack, L. A. (2012). A climate change vulnerability assessment of California's at-risk birds. PLoS One, 7(3), e29507.
- Hobbs, R. J., O'Brien, J. K., & Spindler, R. E. (2018). Strategic gene banking for conservation. In A. B. Kaufman, M. J. Bashaw, & T. L. Maple (Eds.), Scientific foundations of zoos and aquariums (pp. 112-146). Cambridge University Press.
- Isaac, N. J. B., Redding, D. W., Meredith, H. M., & Safi, K. (2012). Phylogenetically-informed priorities for amphibian conservation. PLoS One, 7(8), e43912.
- Isaac, N. J. B., Turvey, S. T., Collen, B., Waterman, C., & Baillie, J. E. M. (2007). Mammals on the EDGE: Conservation priorities based on threat and phylogeny. PLoS One, 2(3), e296.
- Joseph, L. N., Maloney, R. F., & Possingham, H. P. (2009). Optimal allocation of resources among threatened species: A project prioritization protocol. Conservation Biology, 23(2), 328-338.
- Possingham, H. P., Andelman, S. J., Burgman, M. A., Medellıń, R. A., Master, L. L., & Keith, D. A. (2002). Limits to the use of threatened species lists. Trends in Ecology & Evolution, 17(11), 503-507.
- Reed, D. H., & Frankham, R. (2003). Correlation between fitness and genetic diversity. Conservation Biology, 17(1), 230-237.
- Ricketts, T. H., Dinerstein, E., Boucher, T., Brooks, T. M., Butchart, S. H. M., Hoffmann, M., Lamoreux, J. F., Morrison, M., Parr, M., Pilgrim, J. D., Rodrigues, A. S. L., Sechrest, W., Wallace, G. E., Berlin, K., Bielby, J., Burgess, N. D., Church, D. R., Cox, N., Knox, D., Loucks, C., … & Wikramanayake, E. (2005). Pinpointing and preventing imminent extinctions. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 102(51), 18497-18501.
- Ryder, O. A., McLaren, A., Brenner, S., Zhang, Y. P., & Benirschke, K. (2000). DNA banks for endangered animal species. Science, 288(5464), 275-277.
- Ryder, O. A., & Onuma, M. (2018). Viable cell culture banking for biodiversity characterization and conservation. Annual Review of Animal Biosciences, 6(1), 83-98.
- Trask, A., Canessa, S., Moehrenschlager, A., Newland, S., Medina, S., & Ewen, J. (2020). Extinct-in-the-wild species' last stand. Science, 369(6503), 516.
- Tunstall, T., Kock, R., Vahala, J., Diekhans, M., Fiddes, I., Armstrong, J., Paten, B., Ryder, O. A., & Steiner, C. C. (2018). Evaluating recovery potential of the northern white rhinoceros from cryopreserved somatic cells. Genome Research, 28(6), 780-788.
- Watanabe, M. E. (2015). The nagoya protocol on access and benefit sharing. Bioscience, 65(6), 543-550.
- Whiteley, A. R., Fitzpatrick, S. W., Funk, W. C., & Tallmon, D. A. (2015). Genetic rescue to the rescue. Trends in Ecology & Evolution, 30(1), 42-49.
- Wiedenfeld, D. A., Alberts, A. C., Angulo, A., Bennett, E. L., Byers, O., Contreras-MacBeath, T., Drummond, G., da Fonseca, G. A. B., Gascon, C., Harrison, I., Heard, N., Hochkirch, A., Konstant, W., Langhammer, P. F., Langrand, O., Launay, F., Lebbin, D. J., Lieberman, S., Long, B., … Zhang, L. (2021). Conservation resource allocation, small population resiliency, and the fallacy of conservation triage. Conservation Biology, 35(5), 1388-1395.
- Zimkus, B., Hassapakis, C., & Houck, M. (2018). Integrating current methods for the preservation of amphibian genetic resources and viable tissues to achieve best practices for species conservation. Amphibian and Reptile Conservation, 12(2), 1-27.
- Authors
- Mooney, A., Ryder, O. A., Houck, M. L., Staerk, J., Conde, D. A., & Buckley, Y. M.
- Affiliations
- Trinity College Dublin (IE)
- San Diego Zoo Institute for Conservation Research (US)
- University of Southern Denmark (DK)
- The University of Queensland (AU)
- Corresponding author
- Mooney, Andrew
- Venue
- Zoo Biology
- Publisher
- Wiley
- Published
- 2023-06-07
- Volume
- 42
- Issue
- 6
- Pages
- 697-708
- ISSN
- 0733-3188 (ISSN-L)
- 1098-2361
- OpenAlex
- W4379599386
- Cited by
- 37
- References
- 37
- Citations by year
- 2026: 10 · 2025: 17 · 2024: 8 · 2023: 1 · 2022: 1
- FWCI
- 9.56
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- hybrid
- doi.org
- Licence
- Locations
- Zoo Biology (publishedVersion, cc-by-nc-nd)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- University of Southern Denmark Research Portal (University of Southern Denmark) (acceptedVersion, cc-by)
- Funders
- Irish Research Council
- Topics
- Physical Sciences › Environmental Science › Management, Monitoring, Policy and Law › Conservation, Ecology, Wildlife Education
- Physical Sciences › Environmental Science › Ecology › Wildlife Ecology and Conservation
- Physical Sciences › Environmental Science › Global and Planetary Change › Amphibian and Reptile Biology
- Keywords
- cryobanking, species prioritization, conservation genetics, threatened species, IUCN Red List, CITES, climate change vulnerability, amphibians, birds, mammals, reptiles, whooping crane, crested ibis, Siberian crane
- MeSH terms
- Amphibians, Animals, Animals, Zoo, Birds, Commerce, Conservation of Natural Resources, Mammals, Reptiles, Internationality, Biodiversity, Endangered Species
About these checks
Registry, retraction, Cites and statistics results are computed, not judged, with one exception: a printed reference that no index lists is read once by a model before it counts as a citation error. Claims are extracted by a model and kept only when their quote appears verbatim in the text; each cited source is then checked, with a model’s help, for whether it says what the claim relies on. Those verdicts can be wrong — read the claim’s quote and the cited source before relying on one.
Statistics and arithmetic are recomputed, not judged.
Confidence bands are shown only for fields calibrated on our annotated test set. None is calibrated yet, so no band is shown.
What counts as a claim ›How we measure confidence ›How we check this ›
Are you an author, or do you see a problem with this page? Request a review
