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Australia's diverse genetic koala could help save endangered colonies
Researchers from the Living Koala Genome Bank pilot program told Xinhua that a koala with diverse genetics could turn around the fate of endangered koala colonies along Australia's east coast.
Jagger is the first koala to be bred as part of the pilot program, led by the University of Queensland, and was introduced to the public on Tuesday.
The koala has been released into a colony at a conservation park on the Gold Coast, with the hope to improve the genetic diversity of the population in the long term.
Researchers said as Jagger is now in a new wild population, it will bring new genetics into that population to help improve the genetic makeup of the population that researchers are trying to conserve.
One of the researchers from the program, Dr. Tamara Keeley from the University of Queensland, told Xinhua: "The more diverse your genes are between animals, the more likelihood you have a greater number of unique genes in your population."
Keeley said the smaller the number of koalas, the higher the risk of inbreeding. It will not only accelerate the reduction of genetic diversity but also heighten the risk of getting diseases.
Keeley said: "When you have similar genetics between individuals, the animals within that population, they'll start to become more and more related to each other. Then you end up having cousins breeding with cousins, and you're reducing the genetic diversity."
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"It sometimes also reduces health, causing potential genetic abnormalities or deformities. They may not grow well."
Keeley said they evaluated the genetics of a number of wild koalas and selected Jagger's parents who have the most different genetics, which would allow for the production of a young koala with quite diverse genetics.
Researchers will also follow Jagger up in a couple of years, to see if it produced some offspring and see what the genetic makeup is of those offspring.
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With most east coast koalas now listed as endangered, Keeley added they will also further improve breeding techniques and continue to do genetic analysis of these populations.
Source: xinhua
