Ch. 6— Maintaining Animal Diversity Offsite • 159 



ogous to those in domestic animals, important 

 differences exist. Thus, extending available 

 knowledge about domestic animals to wild ani- 

 mals will require accumulation of information 

 unique to each species or group of species. Op- 

 timum use of available individuals in programs 

 of captive breeding or cryo preservation will 

 depend on collecting this unique information. 



Progress is being made in understanding the 

 reproductive processes of wild animals, but not 

 as quickly as it is needed or as it could be used. 

 Without additional research, many available 

 captive animals will continue to experience 

 suboptimal fertility, and fewer total individuals 

 of all species will be maintained at acceptable 

 population sizes in available facilities. Semen 

 from a number of wild species has already been 

 frozen and exhibits near-normal motility and 

 morphology when thawed, but its ability to re- 

 sult in conception is largely untested. Likewise, 

 successful use of frozen embryos has occurred 

 in only a few species. 



A program of competitive grants to support 

 research on the reproductive biology and 

 cryopreservation of wild animals could be ini- 

 tiated. This program could be administered 

 through NSF and would channel funds to both 

 basic studies on the reproductive biology and 

 cryobiology of wild animals and to applied 

 studies of control of reproduction, artificial in- 

 semination and embryo transfer. Preference 

 could be given to existing programs that em- 

 phasize the integration of programs for wild 

 and domestic animals. 



Another approach could be establishing a few 

 centers for study of the reproductive biology 

 of wild animals. These centers could serve as 

 focuses for programs of basic and applied re- 

 search. They should be sufficiently well funded 

 to allow broad programs of research onsite as 

 well as extramural research with cooperating 

 institutions. The centers could likewise serve 

 as repositories for frozen gametes and embryos 

 from endangered populations as techniques are 

 perfected. 



Basic Research in Popuiatien Bieiegy 

 and Genetics 



Much of the basic theory of population 

 genetics was derived in the first half of the 20th 

 century and was adapted to applications in do- 

 mestic animal breeding in the 1940s and 1950s. 

 Current interest in developing breeding pro- 

 grams to maintain representative levels of 

 genetic diversity within populations of mini- 

 mum size has introduced several new program- 

 design questions. These questions relate to such 

 things as the amount and nature of genetic 

 diversity that can be lost without compromis- 

 ing the long-term evolutionary potential of the 

 species, the importance to evolutionary poten- 

 tial of rare genes (which are easily lost by 

 genetic drift), the long-term importance of mu- 

 tation to maintenance of diversity (22), and the 

 importance of genetic diversity (both among 

 and within species) to maintenance of the in- 

 tegrity of entire ecosystems. In many cases, 

 these questions deal with validation of long- 

 term quantitative genetics theory; answering 

 them will require imaginative syntheses of the 

 disciplines of genetics and ecology. 



Some of the needed research is currently be- 

 ing done or has been planned. Without direc- 

 tion, however, it will occur in a piecemeal way, 

 with no assurance that issues of the highest pri- 

 ority will be addressed. A program of competi- 

 tive grants to support development, extension, 

 and validation of quantitative genetic theory 

 related to questions of maintaining biological 

 diversity could be developed. This program 

 could be administered through NSF and would 

 require less funding (because of fewer equip- 

 ment needs) than programs in reproductive 

 biology or cryopreservation. Such a program 

 could provide a focus for needed efforts in this 

 area and a mechanism for screening compet- 

 ing proposals to identify those that address 

 areas of highest priority. 



Domestic Animals 



li 



Obiective Assessment eff CI 

 Oenetic Resources 



The potential contributions of indigenous 

 stocks of animal agriculture both in their coun- 



