conservation genetics

Syllable breakdown

Dictionary meaning

the application of genetic principles and techniques to the conservation of biological diversity, addressing questions including how to maintain genetic variation within small and fragmented populations, how to identify distinct evolutionary significant units, how to manage captive breeding programmes to minimise inbreeding, and how to use genomic data to guide reintroduction decisions; conservation genetics emerged as a distinct discipline in the 1970s and 1980s as population geneticists recognised that the genetic consequences of small population size — including inbreeding depression, genetic drift, and the loss of adaptive potential — were major threats to the long-term viability of endangered species; advances in genomic sequencing have dramatically expanded the toolkit available to conservation geneticists