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A group of scientists unveiled Thursday the first results of an ambitious effort to map the genes of tens of thousands of animal species, a project they believe could help save animals from extinction.
Scientists are working with the Genome 10,000 consortium on the Vertebrate Genome Project, which seeks to map the genomes of all 66,000 species of mammals, birds, reptiles, amphibians and fish on earth. The 10,000 genome has members in more than 50 institutions around the world and the Vertebrate Genome Project last year.
The consortium released Thursday the first 15 such maps, ranging from Canada lynx to kakapo, a flightless parrot native to New Zealand.
The genome is the set of genetic material present in an organism. The release of the first sets is "a statement to the world that what we want to accomplish is actually achievable," said Harris Lewin, an evolution professor at the University of California, Davis, who is working on the project.
"The time has come, but of course, this is just the beginning," said Lewin.
The work will help inform future conservation of endangered species, said scientists working on the project. The first 14 species to be mapped also include duck-billed platypus, two bat species and the zebra finch. The zebra was the only species for which both sexes were mapped, bringing the total to 15.
Sequencing the genome of tens of thousands of animals could easily take 10 years, said Sadye Paez, director of the project's program. But giving scientists access to this type of information could help save rare species as it would give conservators and biologists a new set of tools, she said.
Paez described the project as an effort to "essentially communicate a library of life".
Tanya Lama, a PhD student in environmental conservation at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst, coordinated the lynx genome sequencing effort. The wildcat is the subject of a debate about its state of conservation in the United States, and a better understanding of genetics can better protect its future, Lama said.
"This will help us plan for the future – help us generate tools to monitor the health of the population and help us inform the conservation strategy," she said.
The project has three "Genome Sequencing Centers", including Rockefeller University in New York, the Sanger Institute near Cambridge, England, and the Max Planck Institute for Molecular Cell Biology and Genetics in Dresden, Germany.
Mollie Matteson, senior researcher at the Center for Biodiversity, who is not involved in the project, is intriguing as it could inform future conservation efforts for endangered species. More information on animal genetics could lead to a better understanding of animal resistance to diseases or changes in the environment, she said.
"I think what interests me from a conservation point of view is what we could discern from the genetic diversity within a species," said Matteson.
The project has similarities with the Earth BioGenome project, which aims to catalog the genomes of 1.5 million species. Lewin chairs the working group of this project. The project on vertebrate genomes will contribute to this effort.
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