Meeting Abstract
The negative effects of inbreeding on fitness are serious concerns for populations of endangered species. For example, inbreeding is associated with lower survival in captive populations of Attwater’s prairie-chicken (Tympanuchus cupido attwateri), which is one of the most endangered birds in America. However, it is not known if inbreeding affects survival of birds released into the wild from the captive breeding program. Here, we examined 20990 SNPs from ddRAD sequencing to determine what genomic regions are associated with survival after release into the wild. We found that post-release survival of captive-bred birds was related to alleles of the innate (toll-like receptors, TLRs) and adaptive (major histocompatibility complex, MHC) immune systems, but not to genome-wide heterozygosity. Overall, this study provides a critical step in genetic rescue efforts by discovering regions of the genome that are related to fitness.
