Article ID: 2328
Abstract: With the recent decline in biodiversity, many organisms face endangerment or extinction. Ex-situ conservation, reinforcement, and reintroduction to wild habitats are common conservation strategies for endangered species. However, these practices risk population disruption due to inbreeding depression and adaptation to captive environments. These issues should be addressed through the application of conservation genetics methods. In recent years, many endangered species conservation policies have been based on the outcomes of conservation genetics studies. In this work, we summarise recommendations for the ex-situ conservation, reinforcement, and reintroduction of endangered species from a conservation genetics perspective. We include discussions of inbreeding depression and adaptation to captive environments, which are often problems in ex situ conservation and reintroduction. We also consider risk assessments of genetic disturbance and the importance of genetic monitoring after reinforcement or reintroduction. Although only a few case studies based on conservation genomics have been published, their findings are expected to be essential for biodiversity conservation, such as inbreeding depression risk assessments and population demography estimations.
