World Pangolin Day celebrates with new genomes to help the world’s most animals

Clothing is unique because they are the only mammals covered with scales. Even if they are scaly, their photos will often meet viewers who find cute.

It is important, however, that pangolins play a crucial role in maintaining their ecosystem. Another “unique feature” of them is that they are the most trafficked wildlife in the world, with more than 900,000 people poaching over the past two decades. This is largely due to their high value in traditional medicine, requiring the use of dressing protein meat and scales. This pushes many clothing species to the brink of extinction. In particular, the Malayan Mountains (Manis javanica) and two Chinese clothing species (Manis Pangolin (Manis pentadactyla)) are under acute survival pressure. Since 2014, these species have been listed on the red list of the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN).

As the World’s Clothing Day is celebrated on February 15, new research that provides high-quality genomic data for these pangolin species has attracted attention from the genetic vulnerability and extinction risks of Pangolin species in Malaya and China. The work is a collaborative effort by Chinese scientists, involving Yan Hua’s team at the Pangolin Conservation Research Center of the National Forestry and Grassland Administration, Tianming Lan team at Northeast Forestry University and Qiye Li at Bgi-Shenzhen. The study has been published in the Journal of Open Science Irritating.

Their analysis started with the generation of genomic sequences of Chinese and Malayan clothing species with significantly higher resolution than currently available. With such high quality data in the form of almost gapless chromosome-scale sequences, it is important for obtaining basic information to be an important indicator of genetic health and risk of extinction for any population. To this end, the analysis performed includes genetic diversity estimates, which suggests how much genetic variation exists among individuals in the population. The greater the mutation, the healthier the descendants will be. Likewise, other parameters, such as inbreeding levels in the population, can be evaluated and suggest the possibility of significant health problems over time. These analyses can help focus on the best ways to conduct rescue operations, such as whether selective breeding is critical.

Chinese scientists used their high-quality data as reference points, as well as previously released genomic data from 37 Chinese dresses and 72 Malayan dresses to reevaluate the protective genetic status of the five PANGOLIN populations. They found that overall genetic diversity was surprisingly high, a positive sign of genetic health in the population. However, their fine-grained analysis shows that some of these populations have a higher risk of extinction than others.

Specifically, based on genetic data from a pangolin population, scientists determined that this population has suffered faster and has dropped significantly over the past 10,000 years compared to other populations in the study. Furthermore, other genetic parameters in its study indicate that the risk in this population is high, in particular. In addition, their analysis of Taiwan pangolin specimens showed similar painful data. Future work is needed to consolidate the extent of extinction risk due to severe survival pressures. The study data also suggest that further research on regional differences in these populations should receive more attention because of their ability to help guide genetic rescue efforts already underway.

Professor Tianming Lan said: “In addition to assisting in the management of illegal poaching and trafficking, the Chinese government has also established a breeding center to protect the clothing in China and Malaya and has developed artificial breeding and Reproductive Program. With the help of these data, we can better evaluate genetic rescue strategies for wild populations by re-fighting and releasing these captives in the future.”