Animal poo can be used to help save endangered species from going extinct—study
Animal excretions are often met with disgust, but a group of researchers may have unlocked their hidden potential in helping save endangered animals from going extinct.
In a report by The Guardian, researchers have started a project called "the poo zoo" where they attempt to explore the use of dung to "capture and harness animals’ genetic diversity."
This is based on how feces contains cells from the creature that excreted it from the lining of their intestines. Their research suggests that some of these cells "are still alive" if the fecal matter has been freshly deposited.
Sharing their progress, lead researcher Suzannah Williams highlighted how they have now successfully isolated live cells from both mouse and elephant poo. They hope that the process could be used to "help boost genetic diversity within populations, thereby increasing the chance of species surviving."
This approach is called "genetic rescue." According to wildlife conservation organization Revive & Restore, this process involves breeding with captive bred, translocated, or cloned individuals to increase genetic variation within a population.
Researchers of the poo zoo are more focused on cloning, in which the nucleus of a cell is inserted into a donor egg and the embryo is subsequently implanted into a surrogate to produce a clone of the original animal.
"If you use eggs and sperm, you get to leverage sexual reproduction and all of the recombination that happens during those events, and you get to really start to build the potential for adaptation to environmental stress," said Ashlee Hutchinson, who came up with the idea of the poo zoo.
This means that by creating sex cells in a laboratory, it's possible to "harness the genetic diversity of a species" without having to undergo the rigorous process of bringing together individual animals or having to collect their reproductive cells.
Taking cells from excretion is also "non-invasive" as it won't entail the animal being captured.
But the challenge comes with how much poo they need to collect, as the process needs "buckets and sieves at the beginning." The researchers must also worry about bacteria mixed in the animal waste.
"This is the most bacteria-heavy environment you could possibly collect cells out of," Williams said, assuring they are working on a method to remove the bacteria through dilution.
"Then we culture [the animal cells] in antibiotics and antifungals," she added.
While she noted how the project is still in its "very, very early stages," they have been "feeling very positive" so far.
