Data from: The impacts of inbreeding, drift, and selection on genetic diversity in captive breeding populations

The goal of captive breeding programs is often to maintain genetic diversity until reintroductions can occur. However, due to changes that occur in captive populations, approximately one-third of reintroductions fail. We evaluated genetic changes in captive populations using microsatellites and mtDNA. We analyzed six populations of white-footed mice that were propagated for 20 generations using two replicates of three protocols: random mating (RAN), minimizing mean kinship (MK), and selection for docility (DOC). We found that MK resulted in the slowest loss of microsatellite genetic diversity compared to RAN and DOC. However, the loss of mtDNA haplotypes was not consistent among replicate lines. We compared our empirical data and to simulated data and found no evidence of selection in the MK lines although some evidence of selection in the RAN lines was present. Our results suggest that although the effects of drift may not be fully mitigated, MK reduces the loss of alleles due to inbreeding more effectively than random mating or docility selection. Therefore, MK should be preferred for captive breeding. Furthermore, our simulations show that incorporating microsatellite data into the MK framework reduced the likelihood of drift, which may have applications in long-term or extremely genetically depauperate captive populations.迁地保护繁育计划的核心目标通常是维持种群遗传多样性，直至可开展物种再引入工作。然而，由于迁地种群会发生一系列适应性变化，约三分之一的再引入项目最终失败。本研究利用微卫星（microsatellite）标记与线粒体DNA（mtDNA）分析迁地种群的遗传变化情况。我们针对6个白足鼠种群开展了分析，这些种群历经20代繁育，采用了3种繁育方案各设置2组重复：随机交配（RAN）、最小平均亲缘交配（MK）以及温顺性选择繁育（DOC）。结果显示，相较于RAN与DOC方案，MK方案下微卫星位点的遗传多样性流失速度最慢。但各重复组中线粒体DNA单倍型的流失模式并不一致。我们将实测数据与模拟数据进行对比后发现，MK组未表现出显著的选择效应，而RAN组则存在一定选择迹象。本研究结果表明，尽管遗传漂变的效应无法完全消除，但相较于随机交配与温顺性选择方案，MK方案能更有效地降低近交导致的等位基因流失。因此，迁地繁育工作应优先采用MK方案。此外，模拟结果显示，在MK框架中纳入微卫星数据可降低遗传漂变发生的概率，这一方法或许可应用于长期繁育或遗传多样性极度匮乏的迁地种群。