There are only 10 vaquitas left in the world, but they have enough genetic diversity not to go extinct from inbreeding – if they are protected from the banned fishing nets that kill them
There are only 10 vaquitas left in the world, but a genetic analysis suggests the small porpoises aren’t necessarily doomed to extinction – so long as they stop getting ensnared inAs the planet’s smallest marine mammals, vaquitas are especially vulnerable to entanglement in gill nets used in illegal fishing operations in Mexico’s Gulf of California, where they live. The metre-and-a-half-long porpoises weren’t known to science until the 1950s.
Marine biologists estimate that even at their most populous, vaquitas never numbered more than a few thousand individuals. By the 1990s, there were just hundreds left. Vaquitas’ naturally small population size reduced theirAdvertisementat the University of California, San Francisco. “But our study is showing that reality is more nuanced than that.”
To find out if the few remaining vaquitas could rebuild their population, Robinson and her colleagues conducted an analysis of 20 vaquita genomes. The genome samples were primarily collected from deceased animals between 1985 and 2017. Because the samples were collected close in time from an evolutionary standpoint, Robinson says they are probably “extremely similar” to those of the surviving vaquitas.
“I was pleasantly surprised that the model showed that vaquitas have a good capacity to rebound if they are adequately protected,” says Robinson. “I didn’t expect [the results] to be that optimistic.” While the model found moderate consequences from inbreeding, Robinson says “they’re very moderate and have far less of an impact compared to other factors, like the amount of gill-net fishing pressure”.at the Center for Biological Diversity in Mexico agrees that the results are “very good news”.
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