Friday, April 10, 2015

Mountain Gorillas may be Successful at Inbreeding


The mountain gorilla is a highly endangered primate species of only 500-700 members, mostly located in the Virunga mountain range of Africa. Although the species is studied in great detail, this has been the first in-depth analysis of the mountain gorilla on a genomic level.

Three years after the sequencing of the reference gorilla genome, scientists are now able to compare specific gorilla species genomes to one another. It was found to much surprise that many deleterious genes were were eliminated through the inbreeding of mountain gorillas. Normally inbreeding results in the expression of more deleterious alleles, not less. The study not only shows how gorillas may be adapting to living in small populations, but also provides insight into how populations in general may adapt to limited population sizes.

2 comments:

  1. I found this very interesting! Inbreeding within humans does not seem to have many benefits and is definitely not socially acceptable, so many people seem to ignore inbreeding in all species. Though this may be an odd study, once further investigated this may lead to a genetic breakthrough of how to avoid inheritance of deleterious alleles! We may be able to better our species with the help of such an odd phenomenon.

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  2. I agree with Randy. When people hear "inbreeding", we automatically get sceeved out. However, it is very interesting that in this case, there were less deleterious alleles expressed. This insight may be very helpful in the future, as more and more species are becoming endangered.

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