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200919Apr22:34

Genetic stew­ard­ship in zoos can be improved

Infor­ma­tion
pub­lished 19 April 2009 | mod­i­fied 23 Decem­ber 2011
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Genetic diver­sity con­tributes to the exis­tence of pop­u­la­tions in the long term. The most impor­tant strat­egy for the con­ser­va­tion of genetic diver­sity in a pop­u­la­tion is to min­i­mize genetic rela­tion­ships. In the wild this can­not be con­trolled for species that are threat­ened to extinc­tion. In a reg­u­lated envi­ron­ment though, like in cap­tiv­ity in zoos, well defined breed­ing pro­grammes could and should be able to main­tain genetic diversity.

There­fore knowl­edge on prog­en­i­tors of zoo pop­u­la­tions and their mutual kin­ships is of utmost impor­tance. Meth­ods to map kin­ships sup­port breed­ing pro­grammes which aim at con­serv­ing genetic diver­sity. Accord­ing to Pieter Oliehoek, who took his PhD on this sub­ject at Wagenin­gen Uni­ver­sity on 14 April, stew­ard­ship of genetic diver­sity of zoo ani­mal species can be improved. Con­ser­va­tion of ani­mal pop­u­la­tions in cap­tiv­ity by good stew­ard­ship of genetic diver­sity should be done by using the method of ‘opti­mal con­tri­bu­tions’ he advises. This method deter­mines the opti­mal num­ber for off­spring of a cer­tain breed­ing pair based on kin­ship, which allows for min­i­miz­ing loss of genetic diver­sity com­pared to the ini­tial sit­u­a­tion. (Source: Resource no 23 (Wagenin­gen Uni­ver­sity mag­a­zine), 02.04.2009); more.….

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Tiger range countries map

Tiger map” (CC BY 2.5) by Sander­son et al., 2006.

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