Conservation Science Partners<\/a>, a nonprofit organization that brings together experts in various disciplines to address conservation issues such as habitat fragmentation, landscape connectivity and the spread and distribution of infectious diseases across animal populations.<\/p>\nConsidering the looming loss of species, Dickson said it is surprising that facilitated adaptation\u2014essentially, taking a genetically proactive approach to improve the prospects of a particular animal population\u2014has not gotten much attention.<\/p>\n
\u201cMy colleagues and I thought this would be a compelling idea ready for debate, although it\u2019s not necessarily ready to be put immediately into widespread practice,\u201d Dickson said.<\/p>\n
Rather than taking the \u201cvery challenging\u201d step of physically moving animal populations threatened by climate change, which has been tried with mixed success, facilitated adaptation entails \u201cmoving adaptive alleles from one population to another,\u201d Dickson said. Alleles determine traits (such as a thick coat of hair versus thin in mammals). So traits that bolster a well-adapted population of a particular species could be transferred to a population under stress.<\/p>\n
From a technical standpoint, Dickson said, the science is already being demonstrated with genetically modified organisms in the plant world. Although facilitated adaptation does not go as far as genetic engineering, the Nature<\/i> coauthors agree that even such a mitigated step would be drastic, with profound ethical implications.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf we feel strongly as a society this is something we should explore, then perhaps piloting a program would be warranted,\u201d Dickson said, with a caveat: \u201cFacilitated adaptation should not be considered a substitute for preventing the loss of habitats or the species that depend on them.\u201d<\/p>\n
But that\u2019s an issue for science and the public to decide after a thorough vetting. For now, Dickson is turning his focus back to efforts he has pursued throughout his career, which puts his dual roles into play; he is drafting language to formalize CSP\u2019s already-established connection to NAU.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe Nature<\/i> article is part of a larger set of objectives that ties into Conservation Science Partners and me personally,\u201d Dickson said. \u201cWe\u2019re trying to raise the bar for conservation.\u201d<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Somewhere between the ideas of resurrecting extinct species and engaging in genetic engineering of existing ones lies space for a conversation about a third potential approach to fending off conservation disaster. \u201cFacilitated adaptation\u201d is the name given this concept, and the suggestion to talk about it comes in part from Brett Dickson, assistant research professor…<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":46,"featured_media":27239,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[15,11],"tags":[489,491,490,493,492,38,24],"class_list":["post-27240","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-editors","category-research-academics","tag-brett-dickson","tag-conservation-science-partners","tag-facilitated-adaptation","tag-lab-of-landscape-ecology-and-conservation-biology","tag-landscape-conservation-initiative","tag-nau","tag-northern-arizona-university"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/in.nau.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27240","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/in.nau.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/in.nau.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/in.nau.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/46"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/in.nau.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=27240"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/in.nau.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27240\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/in.nau.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/27239"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/in.nau.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=27240"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/in.nau.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=27240"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/in.nau.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=27240"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
![\"Brett](\"http:\/\/stage.headlessnauedu-b6hgdzckfdgxgzhe.westus-01.azurewebsites.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/10\/Brett-Dickson.jpg\")
<\/a>As coauthor of a comment piece<\/a> in Nature<\/i>, Dickson helps bring the topic to the forefront of scientific discussion. As a researcher, his dual affiliation and multiple pursuits illustrate the complexity of proactively facing the potential loss of 40 percent of species by 2050.<\/p>\n