ABSTRACT
We face a crisis of rapidly diminishing biodiversity: largely as the result of human activity, species are going extinct at a rate comparable to that experienced in the mass extinctions that occurred in the past (about once every 100 million years). The situation is dire but not hopeless; lessons from and research in evolutionary biology can ameliorate this biodiversity crisis. Advances in evolutionary genetics have led to barcoding, a powerful tool of cataloguing and tracking biodiversity. Genetic rescue is the introduction of distant populations to rescue an endangered species. We discuss how genetic rescue was used to bring Florida panthers back from the brink of extinction. What is the minimal size of a population for it to likely persist indefinitely? Determination of such informs conservation and management decisions. We discuss the ecological and evolutionary genetic factors that help determine this minimal viable population size, including recent work on mutation accumulation in nematodes. We also discuss the factors that determine whether and how populations will respond to the new threat of climate change. We conclude with a survey on how the internal microbiota of organisms affects their ability to survive and thrive threats.
