Tag Archives: genetic diversity

How do you use genome-wide diversity in conservation?

Measuring how genome-wide diversity matters to threatened species has been a constant endeavor of conservation genetics, and still is in the era of genomics. But what should we do with the fact that it often do not correlate with IUCN Red List categories, a measure of species’ threat status? Continue reading

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Can small populations benefit from genetic rescue?

The core dogma of conservation biology is clear: small populations are bad for species’ persistence. If we observe a population of endangered vertebrates harboring abundant deleterious mutations but without any reduction in fitness, what is happening there? I would like … Continue reading

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How many samples do you need to investigate relationships between genetic make-up & immune function?

When an organism is exposed to a pathogen, what determines their ability to resist or recover from infection? Mounting an effective immune response is a complex dance with multiple partners, changing tempos, and maybe even a costume change or two: … Continue reading

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Deep in the meadow, under the … seagrass, a bed of temporally stable diversity?

Genetically diverse populations are often more stable and productive. For habitat-forming organisms, such as seagrasses, this results in increased habitat complexity and more abundant associated communities (e.g., Hughes and Stachowicz 2004, Reusch et al. 2005).  Spatial patterns of genetic diversity … Continue reading

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l'oliva di mare: disturbance and genetic diversity

Seagrasses are important ecosystem-engineers of coastal regions around the world. Previous work has demonstrated the correlation of high genotypic diversity with resistance (e.g., Hughes and Stachowicz 2004) and resilience (e.g., Reusch et al. 2005). In a recently accepted paper in Molecular Ecology, Jahnke, … Continue reading

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