24. The role of genetics in wildlife conservation.

Question 1

Genetics

Answer 1

Talking about genetics is talking about the story of the evolutionary processes.
The genetic material gives us all the information about the species, and it is the basis of any living organism. For every individual there is a unique genetic material and for every species there is a distinctive, typical genome, genotype, and phenotype. Every genome will be expressed in different ways, according to the habitat, expressing different phenotypes and morphology.

Genomic selection may be a game changer for endangered wildlife because it allows for the development of informed breeding strategies that promote adaptation. It works by first understanding and identifying what genetic features make members of a species more adapted to an environment or threat than others.
The field of conservation, genetics deals mainly with strategies to conserve or enhance genetic diversity within species’ populations to promote their capacity to adapt, reduce the negative effects of inbreeding and random genetic drift, and ultimately, decrease their extinction risk.
Conservation genetics uses a combination of ecology, molecular biology, population genetics, mathematical modeling, and evolutionary taxonomy

Question 2

Understanding of genetics

Answer 2

Understanding of genetics is very important for the wildlife conservation:
* For wildlife managers, to understand the animals’ body condition, features and characteristics of the species, how different factors affect their growth
o Different situations, climate change, habitat modification
o When selecting an individual of the population, usually is preferable to select a heterozygote individual: the individual that has both alleles from parents that are not related, have better adaptation to different situation
 Example: one individual with alleles that can tolerate extreme heat and extreme cold can better adapt to climate change than an individual that has both alleles for tolerating heat OR cold
* For wildlife managers to keep big trophies, they have to select the biggest bucks, the one with best antlers or the alpha females (most successful) to keep the traits passing on to the future generations.
o Sometime traits express later in life, specially in smaller buck/females, therefore taking the “weak” individual can make the manager loose on the gene pool / those traits that could have been expressed later
* Bottleneck phenomenon: in case of a catastrophic event and part of the population seizes to exist, the gene pool also become smaller too.
o The gene pool sometimes may not be enough for the population to survive, and that leads to inbreeding of the species.
o Inbreeding leads to a smaller diversity in genotype, causing negative mutations.
o In the long run, the species that don’t have diverse genome will easily be affected by natural disasters and can be force to the verge of extinction. Their adaptability decreases.

Question 3

Small population size: Consequences:

Answer 3

Loss of genetic diversity:
* drift: accidental allele lost; genetic effective population size;
* inbreeding: mating of relatives;
* Relationship between genetic diversity and fitness!
Loss of social structure:
* Passenger pigeon
* Benefits of social species
MVP: Minimum Viable Population
* What is the chance of the extinction of a population of a given size within 50 years

• Phenotypes can help species adapt to new environments and that can lead to the creation of new subspecies. If they are present in the environment for long enough (and isolated) and enough mutations occur, a new species can be created.
  o Also occurs when different species/subspecies reproduce
  o Also occurs with the introduction of new food: e.g. birds with a beak that can consume that kind of food survive, create new subspecies
  o New species/subspecies that breed with original populations can create hybrids
   Red and Silka deer

Question 4

Zoos - Ex situ management

Answer 4

Many wildlife species are kept in captivity, and some of these are either extinct in the wild or limited to populations smaller than those in captivity, so that the captive populations represent the majority of genetic variation in the species (e.g., Humble et al., 2020). These are often subject to intensive genetic management and some degree of controlled breeding