Gene Bank or Habitat Protection? The Wrong Question!

In-situ versus ex-situ?

How to preserve biodiversity? When ecosystems vanish, sometimes Noah's Arc provides the last resort – saving plants in a Botanical Garden or at least collecting the seeds provide conservation ex-situ.

However, this can only be the last resort, since natural populations are subject to change and will adapt to the situation in the Botanical Garden. For sustainable protection, we need to safeguard natural habitats, such that the species can evolve in the context of its natural ecosystem. (in-situ conservation). Evolution never stops and a species is not a thing which can be placed into a museum, but a living flow that will proceed forever.

The network project WIPS, funded by the Federal Agency for Nature Protection tried to connect both strategies. For 15 species, where Germany has adopted responsibility in frame of international agreements, conservation cultures are propagated and then brought back to the wild. The whole project was accompanied by evolutionary studies to find out, how the strategy can be rendered more successful.