The red wolf (Canis rufus) was once widespread in the southeastern United States but was declared to be extinct in the wild. Biologists bred captive red wolf individuals and reintroduced them into areas of eastern North Carolina, where they are federally protected as endangered species. The current wild population is estimated to be about 100 individuals. However, a new threat to red wolves has arisen: hybridization with coyotes (Canis latrans), which have become more numerous in the areas inhabited by red wolves. Although red wolves and coyotes differ in morphology and DNA, they are capable of interbreeding and producing fertile offspring. Social behavior is the main reproductive barrier between the species and is more easily overcome when same-species mates are rare. For this reason, some people think that the endangered status of the red wolf should be withdrawn and resources should not be spent to protect what is not a “pure” species. Do you agree? Why or why not?

Imagine there's a species of flower that blooms in early April. Some seeds are blown over a mountain and the offspring of those seeds start a new population on the other side. After several million years the mountain erodes and the two flower populations are reintroduced to each other. The population that lived on the far side of the mountain flowers in early May, while the other still flowers in early April. The two populations never hybridize, and become their own species. This is an example of: Gametic Barrier Temporal Isolation O Habitat Isolation O Behavioral Isolation 1.

Which of the following statements correctly describes inbreeding? A. Inbreeding increases the frequency of genotypes with homozygous alleles in a population. B. Inbreeding results from dissassortative mating. C. Inbreeding changes the allele frequencies in a population. D. Inbreeding increases the frequency of harmful phenotypes caused by dominant alleles in the population.

As we saw last week, population size is important. Ideally, this means you started with a lot of genetically diverse founders, but of course that isn’t always the case. In the case of the Española Galapagos tortoises it was 12 females and 2 males. So, often you have to grow your population to stabilize it and ensure there isn’t an unacceptable loss of genetic diversity over time, even if that genetic diversity is low. If you think back to the math from last week and do a little not so fancy algebra, you can see that genetic deterioration occurs at a rate that is the inverse of genetic retention, which you probably remember is  1- (1/2Ne) Assume that the Española Galapagos tortoise captive population started with an Ne/N ratio of 0.7. Calculate their rate of loss of genetic diversity given their original population size of 14 tortoises (N=14). You will first need to solve for Ne, then plug Ne into the rate of loss of genetic diversity formula. Now let’s work on growing the population.…