Genetic diversity within many species is declining globally, according to a recently published study. “Any threat that reduces the size of a population, or which causes a larger population to become fragmented into two or more smaller populations, can cause a loss of genetic diversity,” lead researcher Catherine Grueber, from the Conservation Genetics Specialist Group at the IUCN, the global wildlife conservation authority, told Mongabay by email. “This is because decreasing a population’s size causes its gene pool to shrink too.” Genetic diversity allows species to adapt to crises like disease, climate change and hunting, so a shrinking gene pool can make them less resilient. To find out how the gene pools of various species were faring, Grueber and her colleagues looked at 882 papers published between 1985 and 2019 that analyzed genetic changes in specific animals, plants and fungi. In all, they gathered trends in genetic diversity for 628 species, some with multiple populations analyzed. The study found that genetic diversity was declining in two-thirds of the analyzed animal and plant populations. These include populations of range-restricted species like the Arctic fox (Vulpes lagopus) and more widespread ones like the black-tailed prairie dog (Cynomys ludovicianus). The description of the decline in terms of populations, not species, “is particularly relevant for widespread species, because even though a species may be found in many places, some of its populations may be declining or even lost. Losing those populations risks losing important genetic diversity for the species overall,” said Grueber, who is…This article was originally published on Mongabay
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