Molecular Genetic Approaches in Wildlife Conservation

Abstract

Wildlife conservation is of major biological importance due to the survivability of organisms in an ecosystem and population stability. The primary concern of the management and genetics of populations is inbreeding. The small population size can play a diminishing role in genetic variability and increasing inbreeding in animal populations. Inbreeding depression can be due to major factors such as rare, deleterious, recessive alleles which can be repressed under heterozygous conditions. The decreasing effect in heterozygosity can be significant upon severe bottleneck effect. The genetic variations between populations could be assessed using molecular techniques. Mitochondrial DNA variations for determining the founder’s effect can be widely applicable in the management of wild populations. The maternal lineages in a captive population can signify the variations in the population as well as the number of males contributing to the gene pool of the various population. Molecular markers can be used to differentiate between populations and identify the individuals contributing to the gene pool of the species.

Insights on the Evolutionary History and Genetic Patterns of Octopus vulgaris Cuvier, 1797 in the Northeastern Atlantic Using Mitochondrial DNA

“…DNA analysis using molecular markers is a powerful tool to improve the knowledge of the species dynamics and to help in its sustainable exploitation. From the different molecular markers in use, two of the most frequently adopted are nuclear microsatellites and mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) [16]. The former allow us to infer precise genetic structuring patterns [17], while mtDNA helps to interpret the history of a species as it gives information about past events.…”