Genetic information as a basis for conservation genetics of national endangered species of wild fauna and flora in Japan

Abstract

In Japan, to maintain populations of organisms at high risk of extinction, the Act on the Conservation of Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora deems them “national endangered species of wild fauna and flora”. These species require conservation genetics studies to prevent inbreeding depression and genetic disturbance. Such studies have examined many “national endangered species of wild fauna and flora”, accumulating genetic information on them. However, most of the published papers have been written in English, which makes them difficult to use for local conservation activities. Therefore, we report the accumulated genetic information on “nationally endangered species of wild fauna and flora” for use in local conservation activities.　We classified the genetic information into five categories: “genetic diversity and genetic structure”, “genome (including organelle genomes)”, “genetic markers”, “inbreeding depression and deleterious genes”, and “other”. The proportion of accumulated genetic information was high for vertebrate species and low for invertebrate species. Many scientific papers examined vascular plant species, but the proportion of species was low due to the large number of species.　With the recent rise in high-throughput sequencing, genome-level methods make it possible to obtain large amounts of genetic information inexpensively. We also review the analysis methods and discuss future prospects for conservation genetics studies.