Inbreeding shapes tuberculosis progression in female adult badgers (Meles meles)

Abstract

In Focus: Beton, C. H., Delahay, R. J., Smith, F. A. P., Robertson, A., McDonald, R. A., Young, A. J., Burke T. A., & Hodgson, D. (2018). Inbreeding intensifies sex‐ and age‐dependent disease in a wild mammal. Journal of Animal Ecology, 87, 1497‐1499. https://doi.org/10.1111/1365-2656.12878 Increasing crossbreeding of relatives promotes inbreeding which, in turn, can cause a reduction in fitness and the emergence of a phenomenon known as inbreeding depression. Benton et al., used the badger (Meles meles)—Mycobacterium bovis model system to study the relationship between inbreeding, disease, ageing and sex. A link between multilocus homozygosity (general effect) and TB progression (measured as antibody response to infection) and between homozygosity at specific loci (local effect) and TB progression were established in this study, highlighting the importance of host genetic background in determining host disease outcomes, and thus on shaping disease dynamics in wild populations. Moreover, the authors demonstrated for the first time in a natural population that this positive association might be modulated by sex and age. In infected individuals, inbreeding only affects disease progression in adult females.

Deciphering Anthropogenic Effects on the Genetic Background of the Red Deer in the Iberian Peninsula

“…It should be emphasized, that besides the genetic deterioration that occurs when exotic species or nonnative populations are introduced, it also represents a high risk of the introduction of pathogens into natural populations (Fèvre et al, 2006), with farm-reared ungulates being particularly prone to carry infectious diseases such as tuberculosis (Mackintosh et al, 2004). Sanitary risks together with the loss of native genetic diversity may have a great impact on the health and fitness of natural populations, and therefore, both represent major threats to the conservation of natural populations (Queirós et al, 2016;Queirós and Vicente, 2018).…”