BENGALURU: Researchers from across the globe, including from the National Centre for Biological Sciences (NCBS), have sought a reconsideration of how hybrid animals and birds are viewed in biodiversity conservation.
The demand, in the form of a report titled- ‘Hybrids Along a Natural-Anthropogenic Gradient: Improving Policy and Management Across All Levels of Biodiversity’, was also published in the Society for Conservation Biology journal.
The experts said that this will help shift the status quo towards science-based, reflective, and context-dependent management of hybrids, instead of the assumption that hybrids are harmful to biodiversity conservation and genetic biodiversity in particular.
They noted that Hybrids (of-springs of animals of two closely related species that have mated) can exist in a grey area. Also, hybrids have little legal recognition in conservation policy.
The International Union for Conservation of Nature also largely omits hybrids from their Red List.
The ATREE team said that researchers acknowledged that hybridisation can be obscure and also problematic in many cases, through many avenues, such as displacing rare and native populations and creating sterile offspring. The challenge for scientists and conservation managers arises when trying to discriminate between hybrids that are beneficial to biodiversity conservation and those that may harm it.
Hybrids may offer a solution to help certain species adapt to rapidly changing environments around the world, the researchers noted. Experts also sought the establishment of some guidelines to help nature managers and conservation practitioners define hybrids, as historically these black sheep of biology have not always been straightforward to recognise.