Ex situ conservation | EPFL Graph Search

Ex situ conservation literally means, "off-site conservation". It is the process of protecting an endangered species, variety or breed, of plant or animal outside its natural habitat; for example, by removing part of the population from a threatened habitat and placing it in a new location, an artificial environment which is similar to the natural habitat of the respective animal and within the care of humans, example are zoological parks and wildlife sanctuaries. The degree to which humans control or modify the natural dynamics of the managed population varies widely, and this may include alteration of living environments, reproductive patterns, access to resources, and protection from predation and mortality. Ex situ management can occur within or outside a species' natural geographic range. Individuals maintained ex situ exist outside an ecological niche. This means that they are not under the same selection pressures as wild populations, and they may undergo artificial selection if maintained ex situ for multiple generations. Agricultural biodiversity is also conserved in ex situ collections. This is primarily in the form of gene banks where samples are stored in order to conserve the genetic resources of major crop plants and their wild relatives. Botanical gardens, zoos, and aquariums are the most conventional methods of ex situ conservation. Also in ex situ conservation, all of which house whole, protected specimens for breeding and reintroduction into the wild when necessary and possible. These facilities provide not only housing and care for specimens of endangered species, but also have an educational value. They inform the public of the threatened status of endangered species and of those factors which cause the threat, with the hope of creating public interest in stopping and reversing those factors which jeopardize a species' survival in the first place. They are the most publicly visited ex situ conservation sites, with the WZCS (World Zoo Conservation Strategy) estimating that the 1,100 organized zoos in the world receive more than 600 million visitors annually.

In vivo X-ray microtomography locally affects stem radial growth with no immediate physiological impact

Pascal Turberg, Charlotte Grossiord, Hervé Cochard, Laura Mekarni

Microcomputed tomography (mu CT) is a nondestructive X-ray imaging method used in plant physiology to visualize in situ plant tissues that enables assessments of embolized xylem vessels. Whereas evidence for X-ray-induced cellular damage has been reported, ...

Oxford Univ Press Inc2024

Piezoelectric Properties of BiFeO3 Exposed to High Temperatures

Dragan Damjanovic, Ke Wang, Xiaolong Li

BiFeO3 is a ferroelectric with a Curie temperature of 830 C-degrees, however, its piezoelectric performance at high temperature remains unclear. The current work reveals a disappearance/recovery of piezoelectricity in BiFeO3 at elevated temperature and upo ...

Weinheim2024

Two-generation common-garden experiment reveals a strong genetic contribution to migration tendency in brown trout (Salmo trutta)

Alexandre Lemopoulos

Many salmonids, including brown trout (Salmo trutta), demonstrate alternative migration strategies under different environmental conditions, and as such, they are assumed to be predominantly facultative. Through experimental breeding for two generations, w ...

CANADIAN SCIENCE PUBLISHING2023