The Library Within

Ancient history walks around on four legs because a zoo elephant is like a living library. The stories it holds within its DNA tell about ice ages and vast habitats being fragmented. Its wild brethren today live in a different world, with their populations rapidly declining; this DNA might help conservation efforts change their future.

Mirte Bosse, a genomicist specialised in conservation, believes that the most important stories of the natural past are not just history in books but are alive. The few asian elephants of today hold within their DNA all the information and stories of their ancestors. From ice ages and deep inbreeding events, with the right techniques, you can find it all back.

One elephant in the zoo may hold secrets of the past that can save the future of its wild brethren. To conserve wild populations, it is not just a numbers game but about biodiversity, which is literally the diversity of available DNA. With both breeding programs as well as proactive genomics, the right strategies can be found to make nature conservation happen.

With this production, we wanted to introduce the relatively new field of conservation genomics to a broad audience. Conservation is not only something that happens far afield but definitely in the lab as well. The zoos we know well can play a vital role in providing the highly needed samples for this work to continue.