With thousands of species at risk of extinction, scientists have devised a radical plan: a vault filled with preserved specimens of our planet’s most important and dangerous creatures located on the moon.
An international team of experts says threats from climate change and habitat loss have outstripped our ability to protect species in their natural habitats, necessitating urgent action. A biorepository of preserved cells, and the crucial DNA in them, can be used to improve genetic diversity in small populations of critically endangered species, or to clone and create new individuals in the worst-case scenario of extinction.
A repository to protect biological samples from disaster is not a new idea. The Svalbard Global Seed Vault on a remote Norwegian island in the Arctic Circle provides frozen storage of seeds to ensure that important food crops can be re-established if they are wiped out by disease or drought. Recent flooding due to warm temperatureshowever, proved that not even Svalbard is safe from the effects of climate collapse.
“If there weren’t people there, flooding could have damaged the biorepository,” said the proposal’s lead author, Dr. Mary Hagedorn of the Smithsonian’s National Zoo and Conservation Biology Institute. War also poses a threat to biorepositories on Earth, she noted, referring to the destruction of Ukraine’s seed bank in 2022. “So in general, the idea of having a very safe, passive biorepository seems to protecting biodiversity after a very good idea. “
The proposed lunar biorepository, as described in the journal BioScience, would be beyond the reach of climate collapse, geopolitical events or other earth-based disasters. The moon’s naturally icy environment means that samples will remain frozen year-round without the need for human involvement or an energy source. Taking advantage of deep craters near the polar regions that are never exposed to sunlight, the moon is one of the few places that can provide the ultra-low temperature of -196C needed to preserve the samples in a way that is suitable is for future cloning.
“To ensure that cloning is an option, one needs cells that are alive,” said Dr. Beth Shapiro, a professor of ecology and evolutionary biology at UC Santa Cruz and chief scientific officer of the extinction company Colossal Biosciences, who was not involved in the lunar biopreservation proposal. This means it is not possible to clone a woolly mammoth from DNA fragments, she explained, but eradication is possible if tissue samples are collected and stored in a way that ensures the cells remain alive.
Establishing a lunar biorepository will involve numerous challenges, but biology is not the most important one. Hagedorn’s team has already used cryopreservation – a technique where cells are stored at temperatures so cold that all biological activity stops – to successfully preserve living cells from the starry goby fish. The star goby is not endangered, but it plays an essential role in maintaining the health of coral reef ecosystems.
In addition to those at imminent risk of extinction, the proposed repository will prioritize species with important functions in their environment and food webs. Through careful selection, those housed can be used to resettle an extinct population on Earth or even terraform another planet.
Hagedorn believes the biorepository proposal will come to fruition, though perhaps not in our lifetime: “We know how to do it and can do it and will do it, but it may take decades to finally achieve,” she said. said.
Given the costs and challenges involved, critics may suggest that efforts should focus on conserving species before they become extinct. However, Hagedorn said both strategies are needed to ensure the conservation of as many species as possible.
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“When we think linearly, and not parallel, we get into trouble. If you say: I’m going to do it this way, and it doesn’t work, what’s plan B?”, she said.
Important next steps will be to develop packaging for the crawl-reserved samples that can withstand the conditions of space, and to work out the logistics of transporting samples to the moon.
Envisioning a near future where exploration of the moon’s resources means more frequent space travel, Hagedorn proposed that delivery of small packages containing thousands of crawl-reserved samples could be added to existing lunar trips.
With so much of the proposal still in the realm of science fiction, the scientists say they hope their paper will generate excitement, new ideas and new international partners — and perhaps a little controversy — about the extreme action needed to save biodiversity. protect.
