Conservation of genetic uniqueness of populations may increase extinction likelihood of endangered species: the case of
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RESEARCH
Open Access
Conservation of genetic uniqueness of populations may increase extinction likelihood of endangered species: the case of Australian mammals Andrew R. Weeks1*, Jakub Stoklosa2 and Ary A. Hoffmann1
Abstract Background: As increasingly fragmented and isolated populations of threatened species become subjected to climate change, invasive species and other stressors, there is an urgent need to consider adaptive potential when making conservation decisions rather than focussing on past processes. In many cases, populations identified as unique and currently managed separately suffer increased risk of extinction through demographic and genetic processes. Other populations currently not at risk are likely to be on a trajectory where declines in population size and fitness soon appear inevitable. Results: Using datasets from natural Australian mammal populations, we show that drift processes are likely to be driving uniqueness in populations of many threatened species as a result of small population size and fragmentation. Conserving and managing such remnant populations separately will therefore often decrease their adaptive potential and increase species extinction risk. Conclusions: These results highlight the need for a paradigm shift in conservation biology practise; strategies need to focus on the preservation of genetic diversity at the species level, rather than population, subspecies or evolutionary significant unit. The introduction of new genetic variants into populations through in situ translocation needs to be considered more broadly in conservation programs as a way of decreasing extinction risk by increasing neutral genetic diversity which may increase the adaptive potential of populations if adaptive variation is also increased. Keywords: Threatened species, Adaptation, Genetic diversity, Evolutionary Significant unit, Extinction risk
Background Defining significant species and populations for the purpose of biological conservation can be fraught with problems. There are over 26 separate definitions of species hindering conservation efforts [1], with some definitions leading to a 50 % increase in currently recognised species [2], yet none able to solve the apparent species ambiguity problem [3]. Within species, importance is often given to “unique” populations, labelled as subspecies, chromosomal races, morphospecies, ecotypes and * Correspondence: [email protected] 1 School of BioSciences, Bio21 Institute, The University of Melbourne, Parkville, VIC 3010, Australia Full list of author information is available at the end of the article
so on (e.g., [4–8]). The biological importance of these populations is not always clearly understood, and can be based on geographical/political boundaries (e.g., the subspecies status of the American puma, Puma concolor), morphology, ecology, genetics and/or a mix of the above [5, 7, 9–11]. In species of conservation concern, the Evolutionarily Significant Unit (ESU) was proposed to identify unique population(s) that have evolved independently fo
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