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CONSERVATION GENETICS

INTRODUCTION
Diversity of life on earth is under increasing pressure from the direct and indirect effects of explosive human population growth Ecosystem -> the complex webs of interdependent but diverse plants and animals found together in the same environment conservation genetics is an important tool in maintaining and restoring population viability

All the remaining individuals of the Great and Lesser Apes would fit into a couple of football stadiums

Boiga irregularis (brown tree snake) caused extinction of 12 species of birds and l species of lizard

A species pool of genetic diversity exists at three fundamental levels

GENETIC DIVERSITY
Interspecific diversity and Intraspecific diversity Interspecific diversity -> diversity reflected in the no. of different plants and animal species present in an ecosystem. E.g. tropical rain forest

Hot spots -> geographic areas with especially high interspecific diversity where conservation efforts can be focused Sp. Inventories are useful for identifying diversity hot spots

Intraspecific diversity is diversity within in the species Intraspecific diversity -> intrapopulation and interpopulation Intraspecific diversity in common bean Phaseolus vulgaris

Intrapopulation -> genetic variation between individuals within a single population of a given species Interpopulaiton -> variation occurring between different populations of the same species

Out breeding intraspecific diversity is found at the intrapopulation level In breeding at the interpopulation level Population fragmentation -> when population are not in contact with each other due to which gene flow ceases Gene flow -> gradual exchange of alleles between two populations, brought about through migration or gamete exchange between them

Hairy-Nosed Wombat. Is 65 enough to survive?

If these populations can increase, are these numbers good insurance against extinction?
1000 Kemps Ridley Turtle?

300 Right Whales?

POPULATION SIZE
Effective population size When a new population derived from a small subset of individuals has significantly less genetic diversity than the original population , it exhibits the founder effect Give rise to reduced genetic variation

Galapagos tortoise population near volcanoes suffered severe bottleneck about time of massive eruption (molecular clock and geological evidence). Population has less genetic variation than other populations but population has recovered.

GENETIC EFFECTS
Isolated populations are more vulnerable to genetic drift, inbreeding and reduction in gene flow Genetic drift -> leads to loss of genetic variation Its a random process, so either deleterious or advantageous alleles can become fixed within a small population

A useful allele can be lost even if it has the potential to increase fitness or long-term adaptability The possibility that an allele will be fixed through drift is the same as its initial frequency Inbreeding -> mating between closely related individuals

Vulnerable small populations

Population of 40 European Adders was isolated by road. In a few years malformed individuals and lower birth rates began to cause population decline. This is an example of inbreeding depression. Population growth was restored when individuals from different population were introduced.

Increases the proportion of homozygote in a population, thus expanding the probability that an individual may be homozygous for a deleterious allele Extent of inbreeding can be quantified as inbreeding coefficient (F) F -> measures the probability that 2 alleles of a given gene are derived from a common ancestral allele F is inversely proportional to frequency of heterozygote in population

African Cheetahs, wild and in zoos, are highly inbred with little genetic variation. A feline viral disease swept through European zoos killing many cheetahs. Lions have much greater genetic variation and were relatively unaffected by the disease.

Effects of inbreeding on long survival of a species -> In high population inbreeding may not immediately reduce the amount of genetic variation Self pollinating plants often show high levels of homozygosity and relatively little genetic variation Inbreeding depression can result from increased homozygosity for deleterious alleles

The no. of deleterious allleles in the gene pool of a population is called genetic load Isle Royale gray wolves Migrated to canadian island where there are no other wolves and no moose

How some plants avoid inbreeding?


Programmed cell death; an auto-immune response of style. Timing of stigma and style reception differ Male and female flowers on different plants

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