The genetic legacy of the first successful reintroduction of a mammal to Britain: Founder events and attempted genetic rescue in Scotland's beaver population.

ABSTRACT: Conservation translocations often inherently involve a risk of genetic diversity loss, and thus loss of adaptive potential, but this risk is rarely quantified or monitored through time. The reintroduction of beavers to Scotland, via the Scottish Beaver Trial in Knapdale, is an example of a translocation that took place in the absence of genetic data for the founder individuals and resulted in a small and suspected to be genetically depauperate population. In this study we use a high-density SNP panel to assess the genetic impact of that initial translocation and the effect of subsequent reinforcement translocations using animals from a different genetic source to the original founders. We demonstrate that the initial translocation did, indeed, lead to low genetic diversity (H _o

SUBMITTER: Taylor HR 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC10853653 | biostudies-literature | 2024 Feb

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature