Program for Conservation Genomics

Enabling the use of genomics in conservation management

The remaining major barriers to applying genomic tools in conservation management lie in the complexity of designing and analyzing genomic experiments. This is where the Stanford Program for Conservation Genomics (PCG) steps in!

Conservationists have generated incredibly detailed and comprehensive data on many wild populations of a wide variety of species. These datasets have the potential to be extremely informative for academic questions about the evolution of genomes, adaptation and natural selection in wild, mapping genotype to phenotype, mutational load, inbreeding, gene flow and migration patterns, and many more fundamental topics in evolutionary biology. By helping conservationists employ genomic tools, we also generate valuable datasets for developing and evaluating evolutionary and ecological theory.

The goals of this program are to bring together academic researchers at Stanford and conservationists from all over the world to develop and implement genomic tools to aid conservation management. We aim to develop technology and resources to provide immediate and direct assistance to conservationists in the field. The data that we help generate is incredibly valuable for the generation and testing of evolutionary hypotheses in diverse and wild populations. Our goals can be considered as follows:

Application of genomic tools

Work with conservation groups to develop cost effective, easy and transparent genomic tools to monitor and study individuals and populations. An SNP panel for tigers has been completed, with one for snow leopards forthcoming.
Identify academic partners for collaboration with specific conservation groups.

Grants

Collaborate with conservationists in grant applications — especially by providing expertise and credibility for genomic studies. We are currently 1 year into a 5-year National Science Foundation grant for our work at Gorongosa National Park with Rob Pringle.

Donors

Create meaningful collaborations between donors, conservationists and academic researchers to solve conservation management problems.

Academic Research

Use the extremely valuable information collected by conservationists to answer fundamental biological questions. Our projects have been recorded in several studies (links available on specific species pages!) with more in the works as research continues.