University of Melbourne scientists take first step in bringing Tasmanian tiger back from extinction
MELBOURNE scientists have taken the first step in reviving the extinct Tasmanian tiger, but there’s a catch.
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HOPES to bring back the famous Tasmanian tiger from extinction have taken another step forward: Australian and international scientists have sequenced its genome.
University of Melbourne Associate Professor Andrew Pask said any hope of re-creating a Tasmanian tiger was at least 10 years away.
“It is technically the first step to bringing the thylacine back, but we are still a long way off that possibility,” he said.
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“We would still need to develop a marsupial animal model to host the thylacine genome, like work conducted to include mammoth genes in the modern elephant.”
The best chance for hosts for embryos would be dunnarts (mouse-sized marsupials), and then, if populations recovered, Tasmanian devils, which are both in a family related to the tiger.
“It’s definitely a long-term goal, can we create embryos and can we transfer those back (into hosts)?” Prof Pask said. said.
“(The technology) is way beyond us at the moment, but so was sequencing the genome just a couple of decades ago.
“Ethically, we actually owe it to species like that, the species we wiped off. If we could bring it back, we should.”
The thylacine’s genome also provides lessons in tackling the challenges faced by the Tasmanian devil, which has genetic limitations as a result of being geographically isolated for 10,000 to 13,000 years.
The genome research, conducted using samples from a 106-year-old pouch-young specimen held in the Museums Victoria collection, showed that low diversity had left the thylacine in poor genetic health.
“Our hope is that there is a lot the thylacine can tell us about the genetic basis of extinction to help other species,” Prof Pask said.
The thylacine and dingo are a prime example of convergent evolution, in which organisms not closely related independently evolve to look the same as a result of having to adapt to similar environments. Researchers found their hunting techniques and meat diet influenced skull and body shape similarities.
“We found the Tasmanian tiger had a more similar skull shape to the red fox and grey wolf than to its closest relatives,” Museums Victoria Dr Christy Hipsley said.
“That these groups have not shared a common ancestor since the Jurassic makes this an astounding example of convergence.”
Prof Pask said environmental factors turned genes “on and off” at different stages over 160 million years of evolution. The research is published in Nature Ecology and Evolution.
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