Environment

Rapid advances in biology has led to a biotechnological revolution in recent decades. This progressing revolution has enabled breakthroughs in genetic technology once believed to be science fiction. The concept of human intervention in the natural processes of biology goes back millennia. Animal and plant breeding to create domestically useful breeds of animals and plants dates back to the earliest forms of domestication.

The global biosphere has seen rapid and dramatic shifts due to anthropogenetic climate change and habitat loss. In our contemporary world biodiversity has been plummeting at rapid rates, with the IUCN classifying 48,600 species across the planet as threatened or endangered accounting for roughly 28% of all assessed species. As of 2024 the World Wildlife Fund has measured an astonishing 73% decline in the average size of wildlife populations across the planet in the last 50 years.

The burgeoning field of Genomics has seen an explosion of growth in recent years yet its roots trace back to the 1950's. Though rudimentary genetic study has existed long before the discovery of the the structure of DNA in 1953, this marks the first time the code of life was able to be read and put to use. Since then, technology to read, understand, and utilize this genetic code has seen breakthrough after breakthrough.

Contemporary conservation management faces a variety of challenges. One of those challenges being the ability to identify species accurately when visual identification is unreliable. Conservation teams generally have two approaches to biomonitoring, visual identification and genetic identification. The former provides a real-time and inexpensive way to classify species, but runs the risk of human error when working with messy ecosystems in the field.