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Capturing conservation in the post-genomics era: a book review of “Conservation and the Genomics of Populations.”

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Abstract

Conservation genetics is a relatively new discipline, and yet has rapidly evolved in the last decade with massive advances in sequencing technologies. Here, we review the newest edition of an influential textbook in the field, “Conservation and the Genomics of Populations”, which seeks to bridge the transition from population genetics to genomics and its application to conservation management. This textbook—complete with 24 chapters (one completely new), 25 guest boxes, and two new authors over the previous edition—navigates the rich and sometimes complex history of conservation and population genetics, while also providing a comprehensive catalog of how genomics broadens our understanding of diversity in a changing world. Despite some sections requiring an advanced understanding of population genetic theory, we foresee this text being used as a reference for conservation geneticists and for teaching upper level undergraduate or graduate students. While we anticipate the field of conservation genetics will continue to rapidly advance with new technologies, this textbook provides a strong foundation of population genetics, while also celebrating the new horizon of genomics for conservation management.

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Acknowledgements

We thank Associate Professor Tammy Steeves for her friendly review of this manuscript. We are grateful also to the conservation genetic Twitter community for their helpful discussions during the review process of this book. We acknowledge the National Science Foundation EPSCoR Track-II Project (OIA-1826801) for their support of SJG, as well as the National Science Foundation PRFB (DBI-2109675) for their support of CSM.

Funding

This work was supported by NSF EPSCoR Track-II Project (OIA-1826801, for their support of SJG) and National Science Foundation PRFB (DBI-2109675, for their support of CSM).

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Biological Sciences, Boise State University, Boise, ID, 83706, USA

    Stephanie J. Galla

  2. Department of Integrative Biology, Michigan State University, East Lansing, MI, 48824, USA

    Cinnamon S. Mittan-Moreau

  3. CIBIO, Centro de Investigação em Biodiversidade e Recursos Genéticos, InBIO Laboratório Associado, Campus de Vairão, Universidade do Porto, 4485-661, Vairão, Portugal

    Soraia Barbosa

  4. BIOPOLIS Program in Genomics, Biodiversity and Land Planning, CIBIO, Campus de Vairão, 4485-661, Vairão, Portugal

    Soraia Barbosa

Authors
  1. Stephanie J. Galla
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  2. Cinnamon S. Mittan-Moreau
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  3. Soraia Barbosa
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Contributions

This work was conceived equally from all coauthors. Figures and tables were designed by SJG and SB. All authors contributed equally towards reading the new textbook and the writing and reviewing of this manuscript.

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Stephanie J. Galla.

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The authors declare no competing interests for this work.

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Galla, S.J., Mittan-Moreau, C.S. & Barbosa, S. Capturing conservation in the post-genomics era: a book review of “Conservation and the Genomics of Populations.”. Conserv Genet 24, 1–5 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10592-022-01481-3

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