IUCN/SSC Cat Specialist Group Library

IUCN / SSC Cat Specialist Group - Digital Cat Library

View printer friendly
Creel, S.
Recovery of the Florida panther - genetic rescue, demographic rescue, or both? Response to Pimm et al. (2006)
2006 Animal Conservation (9): 125-126
Pimm, Dollar & Bass (2006) address difficult issues in their evaluation of the release of Texas panthers to mingle with the last 30 Florida panthers. This release was almost unique, because it was designed to let a hybrid swarm (Allendorf et al., 2001) swamp a population that was genetically unique, but inbred. Trading off against this loss of unique evolutionary potential is, hopefully, a reduction of inbreeding depression that improves the population's demography and dynamics. It is this benefit ('genetic rescue') that Pimm et al. (2006) seek to demonstrate, but the issue is more complex than it first appears. Intuitively, the population's growth from 30 to 87 cats seems to resolve the question, but we should consider the possibility that population growth was because of simple demographic rescue rather than genetic effects.
	PDF files are only accessible to Friends of the Cat Group. Joining Friends of the Cat Group gives you unlimited access and downloads in the Cat SG Library for one year, and allows you to receive our newsletter Cat News (2 regular issues per year plus special issues). More information how to join here