ABSTRACT
Genetics, or the study of heredity and variation of inherited characteristics, is an important field of Science with huge ramifications to the conservation of wildlife. In this chapter, we discuss genes and genetic disorders, Mendel's laws of genetics, chromosomal disorders including numerical disorders (such as monosomy, trisomy and tetrasomy) and structural abnormalities (deletion, duplication, translocation, inversion, etc.), the genetics of populations — and its relationship with evolution, population viability analysis, and the management of inbreeding and outbreeding. Inbreeding has become especially important for extremely threatened species with so few individuals left in the remaining populations that any breeding is often inbreeding, resulting in the proliferation of genetic disorders and inbreeding depression. We discuss genetic rescue of inbred populations as a means to overcome inbreeding depression, and describe cases where genetic rescue led to the collapse of populations — through the process of outbreeding. Thus, we emphasise the fact that management of outbreeding is as important as the management of inbreeding of wild animals.
