ArticleEcology and evolution2012
Inbreeding rate modifies the dynamics of genetic load in small populations.
Article in Ecology and evolution, 2012. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 21 papers.
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The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
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Who cites it
21 citing papers in PubMed, 46 citations in OpenAlex.
- A Test of the Long-Term Efficiency of Genetic Rescue With Drosophila melanogaster.Molecular ecology · 2025Article
- Whole-genome duplication increases genetic diversity and load in outcrossingProceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America · 2025Article
- Whole-Genome Evaluation of Genetic Rescue: The Case of a Curiously Isolated and Endangered Butterfly.Molecular ecology · 2025Article
- The Effects of Hybridization and Parasite Infection on the Survival and Behaviour of Endangered Landlocked Salmon Subject to Predation-Implications for Genetic Rescue.Evolutionary applications · 2024Article
- The Sire Effect on Gestational Length in Wagyu Cattle.Veterinary sciences · 2024Article
- Genomic Underpinnings of Population Persistence in Isle Royale Moose.Molecular biology and evolution · 2023Article
- Purging of deleterious burden in the endangered Iberian lynx.Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America · 2022Article
- Genetic purging in captive endangered ungulates with extremely low effective population sizes.Heredity · 2021Article
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- An isolated white-tailed deer (Ecology and evolution · 2021Article
- Genetic consequences of long-term small effective population size in the critically endangered pygmy hog.Evolutionary applications · 2021Article
- Genetic diversity of Avena ventricosa populations along an ecogeographical transect in Cyprus is correlated to environmental variables.PloS one · 2018Article
- Genomic Tools and Selective Breeding in Molluscs.Frontiers in genetics · 2018Review
- Genetic variation in populations of the earthworm, Lumbricus rubellus, across contaminated mine sites.BMC genetics · 2017Article
- Male Infertility Is Responsible for Nearly Half of the Extinction Observed in the Mouse Collaborative Cross.Genetics · 2017Article
- Effect of spatial constraints on Hardy-Weinberg equilibrium.Scientific reports · 2016Article
- Better Fitness in Captive Cuvier's Gazelle despite Inbreeding Increase: Evidence of Purging?PloS one · 2015Article
- The effect of inbreeding rate on fitness, inbreeding depression and heterosis over a range of inbreeding coefficients.Evolutionary applications · 2014Article
- Plant-species diversity correlates with genetic variation of an oligophagous seed predator.PloS one · 2014Article
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
4 authors at 1 institution in 1 country.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
The negative fitness consequences of close inbreeding are widely recognized, but predicting the long-term effects of inbreeding and genetic drift due to limited population size is not straightforward. As the frequency and homozygosity of recessive deleterious alleles increase, selection can remove (purge) them from a population, reducing the genetic load. At the same time, small population size relaxes selection against mildly harmful mutations, which may lead to accumulation of genetic load. The efficiency of purging and the accumulation of mutations both depend on the rate of inbreeding (i.e., population size) and on the nature of mutations. We studied how increasing levels of inbreeding affect offspring production and extinction in experimental Drosophila littoralis populations replicated in two sizes, N = 10 and N = 40. Offspring production and extinction were measured over 25 generations concurrently with a large control population. In the N = 10 populations, offspring production decreased strongly at low levels of inbreeding, then recovered only to show a consistent subsequent decline, suggesting early expression and purging of recessive highly deleterious alleles and subsequent accumulation of mildly harmful mutations. In the N = 40 populations, offspring production declined only after inbreeding reached higher levels, suggesting that inbreeding and genetic drift pose a smaller threat to population fitness when inbreeding is slow. Our results suggest that highly deleterious alleles can be purged in small populations already at low levels of inbreeding, but that purging does not protect the small populations from eventual genetic deterioration and extinction.
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Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.