Breeding Strategies to Optimize Effective Population Size in Low Census Captive Populations: The Case of Gazella cuvieri

Abstract

Small-sized populations frequently undergo a significant loss of genetic variability that can lead to their extinction. Therefore, research on animal breeding has focused on mating systems for minimizing the disappearance of genetic variability. Minimizing the average coancestry of offspring has been described as the best strategy for this purpose. Traditionally, the preservation of genetic variability has been approached via breeding strategies for increasing the effective population size (Ne). The main objective of this study was to compare, via computer simulations, the performance of different breeding schemes to limit the losses of genetic diversity in small populations. This objective was achieved by monitoring the evolution of the effective size obtained by different strategies across 20 generations with a starting point of two pedigree real populations of Gazella cuvieri. The results showed that minimizing average coancestry in a cohort did not maximize the effective size as compared with new strategies that were designed for this study. Furthermore, the best strategy may vary for each population and should be studied individually.