Conservation genetics

Question 1

What is necessary for natural selection to take place?

Answer 1

A range of traits

Question 2

What is standing genetic diversity?

Answer 2

The raw material for adaptation/ natural selection to take place.

Question 3

How does standing genetic diversity provide a basis for adaptations to environmental change?

Answer 3

Climate change
New predator, competitor or pathogen
New resource/ opportunity

Question 4

What is the result of fluctuations in allele frequencies due to genetic drift?

Answer 4

This causes an increase or decrease between generations.

Question 5

What happens to allele frequency populations when populations become smaller?

Answer 5

The allele frequency fluctuations become larger.

Question 6

How is Observed heterozygosity different from expected heterozygosity?

Answer 6

Individuals are not mating randomly.

Question 7

What is Allele richness?

Answer 7

The measure of allele diversity compensates for differences in sample size.

Question 8

What does the Rare faction allow?

Answer 8

The Allelic diversity of difference-sized samples is to be compared.

Question 9

How do you calculate rarefaction?

Answer 9

calculate the number of alleles expected in sub-samples of size g from each of the samples.

Question 10

What is an effective population size?

Answer 10

The number of breeding individuals that have an ideal population is enough to match a healthy population.

Question 11

What is a census population size?

Answer 11

The number of adult individuals in a population.

Question 12

What is the difference between an effective population compared to a census population?

Answer 12

Effective population size is usually less than the census.
(e.g. 10x less due to unequal sex ratios and reproductive skews).

Some individuals breed more than others, which causes population sizes to fluctuate.

Question 13

Is a high rate of genetic diversity loss found in expected or census?

Answer 13

Expected. This is due to the small generations.

Question 14

How does the monitoring of genetic diversity help us?

Answer 14

Shows us which species are at risk which can guide conservation actions and provide evidence for solutions.

Question 15

If the proportion of a population is 500 individuals how many would you need for a census population?

Answer 15

Multiply by 10 = 5000.

Question 16

What are the differences between natural selection and genetic drift?

Answer 16

Genetic drift is random and non - adaptive which doesn’t generally increase fitness, therefore there is no conservation value.

Natural selection results in local adaptations that increase fitness and are considered valuable.

Question 17

What is an ESU?

Answer 17

An evolutionary significant unit.
A population of a group of populations that are genetically and ecologically distinct from one another and deserve separate management.

Question 18

What are the isolation and adaptation criteria for ESU?

Answer 18

Long-term genetic isolation
Hundreds of generations
A unique product of evolution that is unlikely to re-evolve.

Question 19

Why are ESU’s important for future adaptation?

Answer 19

They are reservoirs of genetic and phenotypic variation.

Question 20

How are Brush-tailed Rock wallabies examples of ESU’s?

Answer 20

They are reciprocally monophyletic with high levels of genetic divergence between ESU’s. This provides evidence for long-term isolation that leads to a high probability.

Question 21

How do Chromosomal rearrangements cause inbreeding depressions?

Answer 21

There is little exchange of alleles.

Question 22

What can fragmentation cause?

Answer 22

Genetic bottlenecks.

Cause genetic structure in formerly panmitic populations.

Question 23

What are multilocus methods?

Answer 23

Model-based clustering methods, which use multilocus genetic datasets (e.g. microsatellites, SNPs, etc.)

Question 24

What is assumed in K populations?

Answer 24

Each is characterised by a set of allele frequencies at each locus