Northwest Fisheries Science Center, National Marine Fisheries Service, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, Seattle, WA 98112, USA.
Curr Biol. 2021 Oct 11;31(19):R1185-R1190. doi: 10.1016/j.cub.2021.08.047.
Natural populations currently face a wide variety of threats including climate change, habitat loss, over-harvesting, invasive species and disease. The most recent report by the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES) found that ecosystems have declined by approximately 50% relative to historical pristine conditions, and that approximately 25% of species are now threatened by extinction. This human-caused biodiversity crisis calls for using all available scientific tools to understand and reverse the increasing rate of extinction. While extinction is inherently a demographic process, being driven by changes in the population growth rate, the field of genetics plays an important role in the conservation of biodiversity. 'Conservation genetics' is a diverse field that applies genetic principles and methods to characterize and advance the preservation of biodiversity. Here, I first provide a short history of the development of the field and then list examples of the most important ways that genetics contributes to conservation.
目前，自然种群面临着多种威胁，包括气候变化、栖息地丧失、过度捕捞、入侵物种和疾病。生物多样性和生态系统服务政府间科学政策平台（IPBES）的最新报告发现，相对于历史原始状态，生态系统已经下降了大约 50%，并且大约 25%的物种现在面临灭绝的威胁。这种人为的生物多样性危机要求利用所有可用的科学工具来理解和扭转不断增加的灭绝速度。虽然灭绝本质上是一个人口过程，是由人口增长率的变化驱动的，但遗传学领域在保护生物多样性方面发挥着重要作用。“保护遗传学”是一个应用遗传原理和方法来描述和促进生物多样性保护的多样化领域。在这里，我首先提供该领域发展的简短历史，然后列出遗传学对保护最重要的贡献方式的例子。
