Genetic and Demographic Considerations in Endangered Species Captive Breeding and Reintroduction Programs

Cooperative captive breeding programs, managed on a regional or international level, can significantly aid in the preservation of endangered and threatened species. The primary goal of these programs is to establish demographically secure and self-sustaining captive populations to aid, through reintroduction programs, the survival of wild populations. To serve this role effectively, captive populations must be managed demographically and genetically. Demographic management focuses on managing population growth while genetic management concentrates on maintaining genetic diversity through mate selection strategies based on detailed pedigree analyses. Measures of mean kinship and genome uniqueness allow ranking of individuals according to their contribution to maintaining heterozygosity and allelic diversity, respectively. Reintroduction programs provide a particularly difficult challenge to conservation. Among many issues is the problem of selecting candidates from a captive population for a reintroduction program. An important genetic goal of reintroduction programs is to reintroduce the full complement of genetic diversity present in the captive population to the wild population. Again, mean kinship and genome uniqueness can be used to initially identify candidates for reintroduction.