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Flashmag January 2020 www.flashmag.net
The gene pool of a species or a population is the complete set of unique alleles that would be found by inspecting the genetic material of every living member of that species or population. A large gene pool indicates extensive genetic diversity, which is associated with robust populations that can survive bouts of intense selection. Meanwhile, low genetic diversity (see inbreeding and population bottlenecks) can cause reduced biological fitness and increase the chance of extinction of that species or population.
Population bottlenecks create shrinking gene pools, which leave fewer and fewer fertile mating partners. The genetic implications can be illustrated by considering the analogy of a high-stakes poker game with a crooked dealer. Consider that the game begins with a 52-card deck (representing high genetic diversity). Reduction of the number of breeding pairs with unique genes resembles the situation where the dealer deals only the same five cards over and over, producing only a few limited "hands".
As specimens begin to inbreed, both physical and reproductive congenital effects and defects appear more often. Abnormal sperm increases, infertility rises, and birthrates decline.
"Most perilous are the effects on the immune defense systems, which become weakened and less and less able to fight off an increasing number of bacterial, viral, fungal, parasitic, and other disease-producing threats. Thus, even if an endangered species in a bottleneck can withstand whatever human development may be eating away at its habitat, it still faces the threat of an epidemic that could be fatal to the entire population.
Genetic erosion in agricultural and livestock is the loss of biological genetic diversity – including the loss of individual genes, and the loss of particular recombinants of genes (or gene complexes) – such as those manifested in locally adapted landraces of domesticated animals or plants that have become adapted to the natural environment in which they originated.
The major driving forces behind genetic erosion in crops are variety replacement, land clearing, overexploitation of species, population pressure, environmental degradation, overgrazing, governmental policy, and changing agricultural systems. The main factor, however, is the replacement of local varieties of domestic plants and animals by other varieties or species that are non-local. A large number of varieties can also often be dramatically reduced when commercial varieties are introduced into traditional farming systems. Many researchers believe that the main problem related to agro-ecosystem management is the general tendency towards genetic and ecological uniformity imposed by the development of modern agriculture.
With advances in modern bioscience, several techniques and safeguards have emerged to check the relentless advance of genetic erosion and the resulting acceleration of endangered species towards eventual extinction. However, many of these techniques and safeguards are too expensive yet to be practical, and so the best way to protect species is to protect their habitat and to let them live in it as naturally as possible.
Wildlife sanctuaries and national parks have been created to preserve entire ecosystems with all the web of species native to the area. Wildlife corridors are created to join fragmented habitats (see Habitat fragmentation) to enable endangered species to travel, meet, and breed with others of their kind. Scientific conservation and modern wildlife management techniques, with the expertise of scientifically trained staff, help manage these protected ecosystems and the wildlife found in them. Wild animals are also translocated and reintroduced to other locations physically when fragmented wildlife habitats are too far and isolated to be able to link together via a wildlife corridor, or when local extinctions have already occurred.
Modern policies of zoo associations and zoos around the world have begun putting dramatically increased emphasis on keeping and breeding wild-sourced species and subspecies of animals in their registered endangered species breeding programs.
These specimens are intended to have a chance to be reintroduced and survive back in the wild. The main objectives of zoos today have changed, and greater resources are being invested in breeding species and subspecies for then ultimate purpose of assisting conservation efforts in the wild. Zoos do this by maintaining extremely detailed scientific breeding records (i.e. studbooks)) and by loaning their wild animals to other zoos around the country (and often globally) for breeding, to safeguard against inbreeding by attempting to maximize genetic diversity however possible.
Costly (and sometimes controversial) ex-situ conservation techniques aim to increase the