Ex Situ Conservation

About

• Ex-situ conservation of biological diversity components outside their native habitats is known as conservation.
• This relies on a wide range of methods and facilities, including the conservation of genetic resources and wild and farmed species.
• For example, the Gangetic gharial, which had previously been extinct in the rivers of Madhya Pradesh, Uttar Pradesh, and Rajasthan, has been reintroduced there.
• Techniques for Maintaining Biodiversity Outside of Its Natural Habitat
• Significant approaches and strategies for the ex-situ form of biodiversity conservation are:
  • Gardens of Botany
  • Parks for Zoology
  • Gene Banks
  • Seed Banks, and
  • Cryogenic storage
• These methods are covered in further detail in the sections that follow.

Botanical Gardens

• A botanic garden is a facility that maintains documented collections of live plants for study, conservation, exhibition, and instruction.
• Seeds, cuttings, tissue, or cell cultures are used to achieve conservation, and genetically representative permanent collections should be established for conservation, (re-)introduction, research, and education.

Zoological Parks

• This is a site where animals are kept in enclosures, exhibited to the public, and where they can also reproduce.
• Cooperative breeding programs that include international studbooks and coordinators are responsible for managing the breeding of endangered species. 
• These coordinators assess the functions of specific animals and organizations from a worldwide or regional standpoint, with regional initiatives for the protection of endangered species being implemented all over the world.

Gene Banks

• Genetic material, such as DNA, sperm, and embryos, from endangered species is preserved in gene banks.
• These resources may be utilized in research, breeding initiatives, and possible reintroductions in the future.

Seed Banks

• Seed banks maintain seeds in certain conditions in order to protect genetic variety.
• Thus, they are a kind of gene bank.
• Compared to other ex situ conservation methods, they offer significant benefits, including simple storage, efficient use of space, low labor needs, and, as a result, the ability to keep big samples at a reasonable price.
• Seeds can be kept for a variety of reasons, including:
  • To possess the genes that plant breeders require to improve the yield, disease resistance, drought tolerance, nutritional value, taste, etc., of plants employed in agriculture (i.e., crops or domesticated species).
  • To prevent the loss of genetic variety in rare or endangered plant species in an attempt to preserve biodiversity ex situ.

Cryoconservation

• The process of cryoconservation involves freezing biological structures that are prone to harm from uncontrolled chemical kinetics, such as organelles, cells, tissues, extracellular matrix, and organs. maintained by cooling to extremely low temperatures (typically -80°C utilizing solid carbon dioxide or -196 °C using liquid nitrogen).
• Any chemical or enzymatic activity that could harm the biological material in issue is essentially halted at sufficiently low temperatures.
• This is a valuable technique for the prolonged conservation of germplasm, particularly for plant species that are challenging to preserve as seeds due to their poor desiccation tolerance.
• Because female gametes and fertilized eggs cannot usually be frozen, its use is restricted to aquatic species.
• It typically refers to maintaining germplasm in livestock for the purpose of preserving genetic diversity.
• Since this distinction is more widely used for applications other than conservation, it is more important for livestock than for other industries.

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