6.16: Key issues on genetic diversity and inbreeding

Owned by Tessa Jacobs
Last updated: dec. 06, 2023
1 min read

  1. Genetic diversity represents the presence of genetic differences within a species between animals, both between and within populations.

  2. Genetic diversity is important to maintain flexibility in a population, to prevent inbreeding depression, to prevent increase in frequency of animals suffering from monogenetic recessive disorders.

  3. Genetic diversity is influenced by genetic drift and inbreeding, selection, migration, and mutation.

  4. Inbreeding indicates the probability that an animal receives the same allele from both parents because they are related.

  5. The additive genetic relationship is an estimate of the proportion of alleles that two individuals have in common because they are related. The real additive genetic relationship may differ from the estimated one because of Mendelian sampling.

  6. Inbreeding coefficients and additive genetic relationships are only informative given the number of generations of pedigree that are considered (minimal 5).

  7. The rate of inbreeding is non-linear and expresses the increase in average inbreeding level in a population from one generation to the next.

  8. The rate of inbreeding depends on a combination of the proportion of breeding males to females, the number of breeding males and females, the variation in family size, and the fluctuation in population size.

  9. The FAO advises to restrict the rate of inbreeding to 0.5 to 1%