Species Sustainability through Reproduction Biotechnologies, Biobanking, and Conservation Breeding Programs

Dear Colleagues,

Global awareness of drastic biodiversity loss and the mandate for Intergenerational Entitlement and Rights for Nature has resulted in international incentives such as COP 15 and COP 28, regional governance, and community engagement to conserve biodiversity through habitat protection or restoration. However, these initiatives cannot prevent the extinction of many species in the wild due to inevitable ecosystem loss through direct destruction or ubiquitous environmental impacts such as climate catastrophe. Since the turn of the millennium, reproduction biotechnologies, biobanking, and conservation breeding programs (RBCs) have increasingly supported threatened species by maintaining genetic diversity or providing individuals for repopulation. However, for species suffering irreversible habitat loss, emerging biotechnologies have the potential to perpetuate species solely through biobanked cells and tissues. These resources can then be used to restore species and, along with assisted evolution, provide individuals adapted to modified or terraformed ecosystems. Largely unexplored are the potentials and ethics of RBCs to support terraforming as the conscious creation of ecosystems on Earth or through expanding the biosphere into space. This Special Issue presents a multi-disciplinary forum for the contemporary and futuristic use of RBCs to prevent biodiversity loss.

Dr. Robert K. Browne
Guest Editor

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• reproduction biotechnologies
• biobanking
• animal ethics
• sustainable management
• endangered species
• terraforming