Skip to main content Accessibility help
×
Hostname: page-component-7c8c6479df-5xszh Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-03-27T09:39:20.997Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

2 - Genetic considerations for plant population restoration and conservation

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  27 January 2010

Get access

Summary

Introduction

Successful restoration policy involves three basic criteria. First, sufficient habitat must be protected for the continued persistence of a species (Gilpin & Soulé 1986). Second, demographic information must be collected to determine which life history stages are most critical to survival, reproduction, and longterm population vigor (Marcot & Holthausen 1987, Lande 1988). Third, once these fundamental criteria for population survival are met, genetic variation can be considered as an issue in restoration and conservation policy. Overall, we believe that genetic issues may be more pertinent to population restoration than to population conservation. In attempting to conserve taxa, one is initially interested in saving numbers of individuals regardless of their relatedness. Given that natural areas managers will have the opportunity to reintroduce populations that have been extirpated in nature, it seems reasonable that any genetic manipulations that may help restore a population's vigor in situ for the short or long term may be beneficial.

Rare and endangered taxa often exist as a few relatively small populations (Holsinger & Gottlieb 1989) subject to population bottlenecks. Thus, genetic drift and mating among relatives contributes to the loss of genetic variation and reduction in the population's overall vigor through inbreeding depression (Lacy 1987, Polans & Allard 1989). A short-term conservation goal should be to ensure that the vigor of a population is maintained or restored in the face of inbreeding by appropriate manipulation of the remaining genetic variation (Ledig 1986).

Type
Chapter
Information
Restoration of Endangered Species
Conceptual Issues, Planning and Implementation
, pp. 34 - 62
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 1994

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Save book to Kindle

To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure coreplatform@cambridge.org is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.

Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.

Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.

Available formats
×

Save book to Dropbox

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.

Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

Available formats
×