Genomic consequences of intensive inbreeding in an isolated wolf population

Abstract

Inbreeding (mating between relatives) is a major concern for conservation as it decreases individual fitness and can increase the risk of population extinction. We used whole-genome resequencing of 97 grey wolves (Canis lupus) from the highly inbred Scandinavian wolf population to identify 'identical-by-descent' (IBD) chromosome segments as runs of homozygosity (ROH). This gave the high resolution required to precisely measure realized inbreeding as the IBD fraction of the genome in ROH (F-ROH). We found a striking pattern of complete or near-complete homozygosity of entire chromosomes in many individuals. The majority of individual inbreeding was due to long IBD segments (>5 cM) originating from ancestors

Published in

Nature ecology & evolution
2018, volume: 2, number: 1, pages: 124-131
Publisher: NATURE PUBLISHING GROUP

SLU Authors

• Åkesson, Mikael

  • Department of Ecology, Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences
    

• Liberg, Olof

  • Department of Ecology, Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences
    

• Sand, Håkan

  • Department of Ecology, Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences
    

• Wikenros, Camilla

  • Department of Ecology, Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences
    

• Ellegren, Hans

  • Uppsala University

UKÄ Subject classification

Ecology

Publication identifier

• DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41559-017-0375-4

Permanent link to this page (URI)

https://res.slu.se/id/publ/94481