Research overview: strategic design of felid genome resource banks

Deciding which individuals, tissues, and species to bank, and how to use stored material, requires strategy to maximize conservation value. This overview surveys the principles guiding genome resource bank design for felids, including prioritizing genetically valuable or underrepresented founders, sampling across populations, and coordinating with breeding programs. It reviews how banks balance breadth of coverage against the practical limits of collection and storage, and how stored material is matched to future needs. The review connects banking strategy to population genetics and studbook goals. Understanding the strategic design of genome resource banks clarifies that effective biobanking is not merely collecting samples but planning deliberately to preserve and deploy diversity where it will most benefit conservation.