Purging of Highly Deleterious Mutations Through an Extreme Bottleneck.

ABSTRACT: Transitions to captivity often produce population bottlenecks. On the one hand, bottlenecks increase inbreeding and decrease effective population size, thus increasing extinction risk. On the other hand, elevated homozygosity associated with inbreeding may purge deleterious mutations. Previous empirical studies of purging in captive breeding programs have focused on phenotypic measurements. We test natural selection's ability to purge deleterious mutations following an extreme population bottleneck by analyzing patterns of genetic diversity in wild and captive-bred individuals of the Lord Howe Island stick insect, Dryococelus australis. Dryococelus australis has been bred in captivity for two decades, having passed through an extreme bottleneck-only two mating pairs with few new additions

SUBMITTER: Stuart OP 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC12008769 | biostudies-literature | 2025 Apr

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature