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Marsupials: Progress and Prospects

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Reproductive Sciences in Animal Conservation

Part of the book series: Advances in Experimental Medicine and Biology ((AEMB,volume 1200))

Abstract

The chapter provides a review of the application of reproductive science to technologies for marsupial conservation and population management and discusses prospects for the future. This includes the status of technologies such as sperm freezing, artificial insemination, and exogenous hormone treatments to stimulate ovarian activity and cycling in the female. Fertility-based population management for introduced pest species and over-abundant native marsupials remain an elusive goal. Immune-contraceptive approaches, despite demonstration of basic effectiveness, have not progressed to field deliverable agents. Emerging genetic technologies such as gene drives offer great promise, but gene modifications face major challenges to be broadly accepted both socially and politically. A main theme is the potential advantages, both genetic and economic, of integrating frozen stored genomic material, such as sperm, into the captive breeding component of threatened species strategies. However, the sperm of many marsupial species display no or very poor recovery of motility on thawing. For this reason, it is proposed that the traditional assisted breeding paradigm for conservation—cervical artificial insemination with thawed frozen sperm, based on cattle breeding—is not a viable default strategy. Rather, techniques such as sperm injection and emerging stem cell technologies that utilize stored frozen cells, and in the case of sperm, immotile cells, are better candidates for the development of a more generic approach. In addition, this change in focus encourages wide scale proactive genome storage when genetic diversity is greatest, without the need to demonstrate success in traditional sperm cryopreservation and thawing. However, the promise of the potential of reproductive science to conservation and non-lethal population management is problematic without far greater recognition of, and investment in, the needs of wildlife by society.

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Acknowledgements

My research has had the input of many collaborators; in particular Karen Mate and Frank Molinia for the earlier work on superovulation, gamete biology, AI and sperm freezing, and Anne Kitchener, Carmen McCartney and David Kay for the work on marsupial fertility control vaccines. More recently Ryan Witt and Lyn Hinds have made major contributions to the research on managing the female cycle and Lachlan Howell and John Clulow to research on captive breeding costs and practice and genome storage policy options.

My research on marsupial reproduction has been supported over the years by the Australian governments CRC and ARC programs, New Zealand government funded possum control programs, The Morris Animal Foundation and the Holsworth Wildlife Research Endowment.

My colleagues Carmen McCartney and Ryan Witt read the manuscript and gave good advice as did two referees. Ryan also introduced me to Endnote and generously made his data set available. The opinions expressed are my own.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. FAUNA Research Alliance, School of Environmental and Life Sciences, The University of Newcastle, Callaghan, NSW, Australia

    John C. Rodger

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Correspondence to John C. Rodger .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Smithsonian Conservation Biology Institute, National Zoological Park, Washington, DC, USA

    Pierre Comizzoli

  2. Smithsonian Conservation Biology Institute, National Zoological Park, Front Royal, VA, USA

    Janine L. Brown

  3. Academic Unit of Reproductive and Developmental Medicine, The University of Sheffield, Sheffield, UK

    William V. Holt

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Rodger, J.C. (2019). Marsupials: Progress and Prospects. In: Comizzoli, P., Brown, J., Holt, W. (eds) Reproductive Sciences in Animal Conservation. Advances in Experimental Medicine and Biology, vol 1200. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-23633-5_11

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