Final answer:
Cloning in conservation might help endangered species and supplement captive breeding programs but comes with high failure rates, ethical concerns, and adaptation issues.
Step-by-step explanation:
Should Cloning be Used in Species Conservation?
Cloning to increase populations of endangered species or to bring back extinct species is a topic that involves biology, ethics, and conservation strategies.
Cloning has been suggested as a tool for conservation efforts, potentially being capable of supplementing captive breeding programs and enriching genetic diversity within populations of endangered species.
However, the process is not without significant downsides, such as high failure rates, ethical issues, and potential lack of adaptation in cloned animals to current and future environments.
One successful example of cloning would be the creation of 'Dolly' the sheep, but it took 277 attempts to achieve this, highlighting the process's inefficiency.
The cloning of plants for human food sources has some benefits, such as rapid reproduction of plants with desirable traits like disease resistance or high yield.
However, clones have little genetic variation, which could pose a risk in the face of climate change. Varied genetic makeup in non-clonal crops might offer better resilience to changing environmental conditions.
Thus, while cloning could help in the short term, it may reduce a plant population's overall ability to adapt to future changes.
Moving from plants to animals, zoos often utilize captive breeding programs to help endangered species, which have had mixed success.
Cloning could supplement those efforts, but reintroducing cloned animals to the wild presents unique challenges, such as ensuring they can survive and adapt to natural habitats.
Lastly, ethical considerations are paramount when it comes to cloning, particularly of humans. The risks, as well as the moral quandaries posed by such technology, have led to human cloning being illegal in the United States and highly controversial worldwide.