Fabrice Teletchea

By Fabrice Teletchea

Biodiversity is facing a major crisis, which is most often described as the sixth mass extinction or Anthropocene extinction. Several solutions have been proposed to save threatened animal species, among which ex situ conservation or captive breeding, which is the essential part of a process called domestication. The main goals of the present chapter are to define clearly what domestication is, describe what the possible consequences are and discuss whether it can truly play a significant role to save threatened animal species. Domestication appears as a possible tool to help saving threatened species. Nevertheless, the time in captive conditions has to be minimized in order to modify as less as possible wild individuals. Therefore, zoos and aquariums can play a crucial role in helping to save the most endangered species and then restore their populations in the wild, but only if they are involved in both in situ and ex situ conservation programs. More importantly, domestication should be considered as part of the solution, but not the only one, to save threatened species. The protection of wild animals in situ, the restoration of habitats and the development of reserves should first be considered.

Part of the book: Global Exposition of Wildlife Management

By Fabrice Teletchea and Jean-Nicolas Beisel

Introduction of alien species constitutes worldwide one of the major threats to biodiversity, particularly in freshwater ecosystems. In France, the number of alien aquatic plant and animal species has increased exponentially over time in freshwater ecosystems and shows no sign of decreasing. For fish only, more than 40 alien species have been either voluntary or involuntary introduced in the past decades. About two-thirds are still present today and at least 26 are naturalized. As in many European countries, the fish introduction history in France switched from voluntary introduction in the nineteenth century (aquaculture, sport fishing, and management of ecosystems) to unintentional but human-aided introductions (aquarium trade and global ship transport). The negative impacts of alien species on native species and ecosystems are most often unknown in France and needs further studies to develop a functional policy on alien species introductions and the protection of aquatic ecosystems integrity. The information gathered allow discussing the possible reasons explaining whether an alien species is able or not to establish sustainable populations in France and thereafter became invasive, such as gobies recently arrived.

Part of the book: Biological Resources of Water

By Teletchea Fabrice

The first trials of fish farming date back about 3500 years. Yet, this is only in the 1980s that the exponential development of aquaculture occurred, driven by the strong demand for aquatic products, whereas global capture fisheries started decreasing. The strong increase of aquaculture production has relied chiefly on the domestication of an increasing number of fish species. Nevertheless, only a limited number has reached a high level of domestication. The aim of this chapter is to describe the domestication history of five of the main farmed fish species globally in which all have reached Level 5 and one example that has reached Level 2 only. These six species were chosen because enough scientific literature was available to describe their domestication history that allows illustrating both ancient and recent fish domestication.

Part of the book: Animal Domestication

By Fabrice Teletchea

In the origin of modern humans, hunting of wild animals and gathering of wild plants in nature were the primary subsistence strategies. Yet, about 12,000 years ago, the domestication of plants and animals began. The two main goals of the present chapter are to briefly describe (i) how wild animals were domesticated and (ii) what are the main biological consequences for the major farmed species (cattle, pig, sheep, goat, and horse). During about 98% of their domestication history, domestic animals have been managed in a sustainable way by farmers, followed by a period of strong selection about 200 years ago to produce hundreds of well-defined breeds. A few decades ago, the selection pressures have further increased, leading to a few industrial breeds, which were introduced in numerous countries, most often at the expense of local breeds. Within a few decades, we thus might lose most of the highly valuable farm animal genetic resources that humans have gradually selected over the past millennia. Consequently, priorities should be given to preserve the genetic resources in marginal or rare breeds, and selection programs should aim at restoring the genetic diversity in industrial breeds.

Part of the book: Animal Domestication