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Genetic rescue guidelines with examples from Mexican wolves and Florida panthers

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Abstract

In populations or species with low fitness (high genetic load), a new management strategy called genetic rescue has been advocated to help avoid extinction. In this strategy, unrelated individuals from another population are introduced into the population with low fitness in an effort to reduce genetic load. Here we present ten guidelines that can be used to evaluate when genetic rescue is a good management option, the appropriate procedures for genetic rescue planning and management, and the potential negative genetic consequences of genetic rescue. These guidelines are then used to evaluate the genetic rescue aspects of the recovery programs for the Mexican wolf and the Florida panther.

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Acknowledgments

We thank Roy McBride for sharing the Florida panther annual count data, Darrell Land for sharing the Florida panther mortality data, and Hans Ellegren, Darrell Land, Olof Liberg, Michael Nelson, Dave Onorato, John Vucetich, Robin Waples, and two reviewers for comments on the manuscript. PWH thanks the Ullman Professorship for financial support. PWH also thanks the ESF Science Networking Programme ConGen for support to attend the meetings in Berlin in 2005 and Trondheim in 2009, Kuke Bijlsma and Volker Loeschcke for invitations to these meetings, and Tjetil Hindar for his wonderful hospitality at the Trondheim meeting.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. School of Life Sciences, Arizona State University, Tempe, AZ, 85287-4501, USA

    Philip W. Hedrick

  2. College of Forestry and Conservation, University of Montana, Missoula, MT, 59812-0596, USA

    Richard Fredrickson

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  1. Philip W. Hedrick
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  2. Richard Fredrickson
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Correspondence to Philip W. Hedrick.

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Hedrick, P.W., Fredrickson, R. Genetic rescue guidelines with examples from Mexican wolves and Florida panthers. Conserv Genet 11, 615–626 (2010). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10592-009-9999-5

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