> Conservation projects typically aim to maintain a self-sustaining population over the long term. Mitigating extrinsic causes of population decline, such as habitat loss or invasive species, is an integral part of species recovery and conservation, but there is a growing awareness that preserving the genetic health of the population is also critical. Genetic health is threatened by population bottlenecks when the amount of genetic diversity retained in the population is limited by the number of individuals surviving the bottleneck and is threatened by genetic drift if a population is isolated and constrained to a relatively small size over a long period. These situations can rapidly eliminate much of the genetic diversity that has accumulated in a species over thousands of years. Loss of genetic diversity is often quantified as the loss of heterozygosity due to inbreeding …

Weiser, E. L., Grueber, C. E., & Jamieson, I. G. (2013). Simulating Retention of Rare Alleles in Small Populations to Assess Management Options for Species with Different Life Histories. Conservation Biology.

Submitted by PLB

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