Another article on inbreeding:
Sometimes an endangered species has a depleted gene pool. (Better Breeding, BAP SCIENCE vol. 328 no. 5985 June 18, 2010 page 1455) This article reviews a paper that examines the effect of inbreeding on the sperm integrity and function of three species of gazelle in North Africa. It makes pretty grim reading. The DNA in the sperm of inbred animals fragments and it gets worse with age. Also their offspring do not do well. What is most baffling to me is that mothers who are pregnant for the first time do not do so well at producing viable offspring as do mothers who have foaled a number of times before. How in the world do they learn how to make up for deficient males? I suspect something else is going on, but there is no mention of whether the primiparous females were as inbred as the multiparous ones. I would assume that that was looked into.
This is the kind of thing of course that one needs to know about when trying to rescue a species on the verge of extinction.
On the other hand, outbreeding has its perils, too, as I continue to insist. Yet there is no mention of that as a consideration. Once again, the word has not got out yet.
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