Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
Review
. 2019 Oct;20(10):615-628.
doi: 10.1038/s41576-019-0152-0. Epub 2019 Jul 12.

The potential of genomics for restoring ecosystems and biodiversity

Martin F Breed  1 , Peter A Harrison  2 , Colette Blyth  3 , Margaret Byrne  4 , Virginie Gaget  3 , Nicholas J C Gellie  3 , Scott V C Groom  5 , Riley Hodgson  3 , Jacob G Mills  3 , Thomas A A Prowse  3   6 , Dorothy A Steane  2 , Jakki J Mohr  7
Affiliations
Review

The potential of genomics for restoring ecosystems and biodiversity

Martin F Breed et al. Nat Rev Genet. 2019 Oct.

Abstract

Billions of hectares of natural ecosystems have been degraded through human actions. The global community has agreed on targets to halt and reverse these declines, and the restoration sector faces the important but arduous task of implementing programmes to meet these objectives. Existing and emerging genomics tools offer the potential to improve the odds of achieving these targets. These tools include population genomics that can improve seed sourcing, meta-omics that can improve assessment and monitoring of restoration outcomes, and genome editing that can generate novel genotypes for restoring challenging environments. We identify barriers to adopting these tools in a restoration context and emphasize that regulatory and ethical frameworks are required to guide their use.

PubMed Disclaimer

References

    1. Ceballos, G. et al. Accelerated modern human-induced species losses: entering the sixth mass extinction. Sci. Adv. 1, e1400253 (2015). - PubMed - PMC - DOI
    1. Gibbs, H. K. & Salmon, J. M. Mapping the world’s degraded lands. Appl. Geogr. 57, 12–21 (2015). - DOI
    1. Suding, K. et al. Committing to ecological restoration. Science 348, 638–640 (2015). - PubMed - DOI
    1. Iftekhar, M. S. et al. How economics can further the success of ecological restoration. Conserv. Biol. 31, 261–268 (2017). - PubMed - DOI
    1. Crouzeilles, R. et al. A global meta-analysis on the ecological drivers of forest restoration success. Nat. Commun. 7, 11666 (2016). - PubMed - PMC - DOI

Publication types

LinkOut - more resources