The Genetics of Reintroductions: Inbreeding and Genetic Drift

Keller, Lukas F.; Biebach, Iris; Ewing, Steven R.; Hoeck, Paquita E. A.

doi:10.1002/9781444355833.ch11

Cited by 55 publications

(62 citation statements)

References 140 publications

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“…The processes of song divergence we describe here are directly comparable to the genetic effects commonly seen following translocations, that is, a bottleneck effect relative to founder size and subsequent drift associated with population growth rate and age (Jamieson & Lacy ; Keller et al . ). Indeed, Lambert et al .…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 97%

The effects of translocation‐induced isolation and fragmentation on the cultural evolution of bird song

Parker

Anderson

Jenkins³

et al. 2012

Ecology Letters

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Understanding the divergence of behavioural signals in isolated populations is critical to knowing how certain barriers to gene flow can develop. For many bird species, songs are essential for conspecific recognition and mate choice. Measuring the rate of song divergence in natural populations is difficult, but translocations of endangered birds to isolated islands for conservation purposes can yield insights, as the age and source of founder populations are completely known. We found significant and rapid evolution in the structure and diversity of bird song in North Island saddlebacks, Philesturnus rufusater, in New Zealand, with two distinct lineages evolving in < 50 years. The strong environmental filters of serial translocations resulted in cultural bottlenecks that generated drift and reduced song variability within islands. This rapid divergence coupled with loss of song diversity has important implications for the behavioural evolution of this species, demonstrating previously unrecognised biological consequences of conservation management.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 97%

The effects of translocation‐induced isolation and fragmentation on the cultural evolution of bird song

Parker

Anderson

Jenkins³

et al. 2012

Ecology Letters

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“…The main criticism of intentional inbreeding is focused on issues related to: (i) purging efficiency; intentional inbreeding does not effectively purge deleterious alleles, because it reduces the effective population size, (ii) reduction of genetic variability and fixation of deleterious alleles; intentional inbreeding, with its associated reduction of the effective population size, could lead to the loss of adaptive variation and fixation of detrimental alleles (Keller et al, 2012). Although close inbreeding of related individuals causes a much more rapid initial decrease of heterozygosity than for minimization of mean coancestry, half-sib mating confers a variance-effective population size that is proportional to the square of population size (Crow and Kimura, 1970;Nagylaki, 1992).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

The efficiency of close inbreeding to reduce genetic adaptation to captivity

Theodorou

Couvet

2014

Heredity

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Although ex situ conservation is indispensable for thousands of species, captive breeding is associated with negative genetic changes: loss of genetic variance and genetic adaptation to captivity that is deleterious in the wild. We used quantitative genetic individual-based simulations to model the effect of genetic management on the evolution of a quantitative trait and the associated fitness of wild-born individuals that are brought to captivity. We also examined the feasibility of the breeding strategies under a scenario of a large number of loci subject to deleterious mutations. We compared two breeding strategies: repeated half-sib mating and a method of minimizing mean coancestry (referred to as gc/mc). Our major finding was that halfsib mating is more effective in reducing genetic adaptation to captivity than the gc/mc method. Moreover, half-sib mating retains larger allelic and adaptive genetic variance. Relative to initial standing variation, the additive variance of the quantitative trait increased under half-sib mating during the sojourn in captivity. Although fragmentation into smaller populations improves the efficiency of the gc/mc method, half-sib mating still performs better in the scenarios tested. Half-sib mating shows two caveats that could mitigate its beneficial effects: low heterozygosity and high risk of extinction when populations are of low fecundity and size and one of the following conditions are met: (i) the strength of selection in captivity is comparable with that in the wild, (ii) deleterious mutations are numerous and only slightly deleterious. Experimental validation of half-sib mating is therefore needed for the advancement of captive breeding programs.

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“…Inbreeding depression is particularly a concern in threatened species with small, isolated populations, where the level of inbreeding will slowly increase even when mating is random with respect to relatedness (Keller and Waller ; Keller et al. ). Intuitively, we would expect that the more inbred a population becomes, the greater the severity of inbreeding depression.…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

“…In addition, the lack of evidence for purging in wild populations is often attributable to poor statistical power resulting from low variance in individual inbreeding coefficients, small sample sizes, and/or studies of short duration (Kalinowski and Hedrick ; Bouzat ; Keller et al. ). Inbreeding itself is difficult to detect in wild populations without detailed pedigrees (Pemberton ).…”

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confidence: 99%

Severe Inbreeding Depression and No Evidence of Purging in an Extremely Inbred Wild Species-the Chatham Island Black Robin

Kennedy¹,

Grueber

Duncan

et al. 2013

Evolution

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Although evidence of inbreeding depression in wild populations is well established, the impact of genetic purging in the wild remains controversial. The contrasting effects of inbreeding depression, fixation of deleterious alleles by genetic drift, and the purging of deleterious alleles via natural selection mean that predicting fitness outcomes in populations subjected to prolonged bottlenecks is not straightforward. We report results from a long-term pedigree study of arguably the world's most inbred wild species of bird: the Chatham Island black robin Petroica traversi, in which conditions were ideal for purging to occur. Contrary to expectations, black robins showed a strong, negative relationship between inbreeding and juvenile survival, yielding lethal equivalents (2B) of 6.85. We also determined that the negative relationship between inbreeding and survival did not appear to be mediated by levels of ancestral inbreeding and may be attributed in part to unpurged lethal recessives. Although the black robin demographic history provided ideal conditions for genetic purging, our results show no clear evidence of purging in the major life-history trait of juvenile survival. Our results also show no evidence of fixation of deleterious alleles in juvenile survival, but do confirm that continued high levels of contemporary inbreeding in a historically inbred population could lead to additional severe inbreeding depression.

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The Genetics of Reintroductions: Inbreeding and Genetic Drift

Cited by 55 publications

References 140 publications

The effects of translocation‐induced isolation and fragmentation on the cultural evolution of bird song

The effects of translocation‐induced isolation and fragmentation on the cultural evolution of bird song

The efficiency of close inbreeding to reduce genetic adaptation to captivity

Severe Inbreeding Depression and No Evidence of Purging in an Extremely Inbred Wild Species-the Chatham Island Black Robin

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