Inbreeding is good - for mountain gorillas
New research suggests that Africa's endangered mountain gorillas are successfully using inbreeding as a strategy to stave off extinction. The information challenges the standard thinking of inbreeding as harmful.
Helping to avoid extinction
Although inbreeding is often thought to be dangerous, for endangered mountain gorillas living in the forests of central Africa, this has likely helped them survive. Research from the genomics and genetics research center Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute suggests the practice has helped mountain gorillas overcome harmful genetic mutations as adverse genetic material disappears from the gene pool.
Genetic adaptation
By studying gorilla blood samples, researchers found that not only does inbreeding help remove harmful genetic variations from the population, but that mountain gorillas are also genetically adapting to surviving in smaller populations.
Inbreeding beneficial
Researchers have often thought this low level of genetic diversity may make the mountain gorilla more susceptible to diseases and environmental changes. But instead, they say, fewer harmful mutation genes were found than in more populous western gorilla populations. There, such variations can cause serious and often fatal health problems.
Growing in numbers
As a result of habitat destruction and poaching, by 1981 there were thought to be just 253 mountain gorillas left in the Virunga volcanic range in the triple border region of the Democratic Republic of Congo, Uganda and Rwanda. Through conservation and a crackdown on poaching, there are now approximately 480 mountain gorillas in the area.
Neanderthals could not cope
Neanderthals, an extinct human species and a close relative of the gorilla, had comparable levels of inbreeding. However, unlike the mountain gorilla, Neanderthals were unable to genetically adapt, and the species died out thousands of years ago.
Research to aid conservation
With a genome-wide map of the genetic differences between gorilla populations now available, further data gathered could help conservation efforts. Researchers expect the findings to help identify the origins of gorillas that have been illegally captured or slaughtered. This will help gorillas be returned to the wild, and aid in prosecuting poachers.
Uncertain future
But poachers are not the only problem. Mountain gorillas are also losing their natural habitat due to illegal farming and logging. According to the World Wildlife Fund (WWF), 90 percent of their existing habitat will be gone by 2030, if no action is taken now to protect it.