Vaquita porpoises are on the edge of extinction, with just 10 left in their sole habitat within Mexico's Gulf of California.
Plants & Animals
May 08, 2022
0
70
Finding love in a small isolated place can be tough when everyone is a familiar face, or when half the dating pool is already out because they're all close relatives.
Plants & Animals
Mar 07, 2022
0
150
There' s no longer any doubt—the wolves found in Norway and Sweden today are actually Finnish, according to extensive studies done on their genetic makeup. Humans wiped out Norway's original wolf population in the wild ...
Plants & Animals
Dec 01, 2021
1
40154
More and more threatened species are relying on captive breeding to avoid extinction. Some species on the brink only exist in captivity, and others depend on captive breeding for their recovery before they're released to ...
Plants & Animals
Dec 04, 2020
0
3
Biologists have long known that inbreeding can be detrimental. Inbreeding results in less genetic variation, making species more vulnerable if changes occur that require them to adapt.
Evolution
Jul 30, 2020
0
24
Habitat destruction results in wildlife populations that are small, made up of relatives, and have low genetic variation.
Plants & Animals
Aug 01, 2019
0
17
A new paper explores the genetic signatures of a pair of wolves isolated on Isle Royale, a remote national park in Lake Superior. The pair are father-daughter and share the same mother. Such close inbreeding leads to genetic ...
Ecology
May 29, 2019
0
144
Inbreeding could lead to increased rates of cancer, putting both humans and endangered animals at risk according to a review led by researchers at Deakin University's Centre for Integrative Ecology.
Ecology
Mar 22, 2018
0
8
Researchers at the University of Valencia's Cavanilles Institute of Biodiversity and Evolutionary Biology have put the 'unguarded X hypothesis' to the test and confirmed that differences in lifespan between the sexes, a widespread ...
Biotechnology
Jul 20, 2016
0
3
Pieces of DNA that predict lifespan are shorter in birds that are inbred - according to new research from the University of East Anglia (UEA).
Plants & Animals
May 17, 2016
1
279
Inbreeding is breeding between close relatives, whether plant or animal. If practiced repeatedly, it can lead to exposure of recessive, deleterious traits. This generally leads to a decreased fitness of a population, which is called inbreeding depression. Deleterious alleles causing inbreeding depression can subsequently be removed through culling. This is known as genetic purging.
Livestock breeders often practice inbreeding to "fix" desirable characteristics within a population. However, they must then cull unfit offspring, especially when trying to establish the new and desirable trait in their stock.
In plant breeding, inbred lines are used as stocks for the creation of hybrid lines to make use of the heterosis effect. Inbreeding in plants also occurs naturally in the form of self-pollination.
This text uses material from Wikipedia, licensed under CC BY-SA
