Saw a post talking about the white Rhino only had 200 animals left but now there are so many more. But how is this done without serious inbreeding. Or is there something I’m missing?
Edit: yes, I know how sexy time works.
In: Biology
Serious inbreeding can be avoided with 200 animals. That’s enough to introduce enough genetic mixup without causing too much of a problem (if there were only 2 rhinos, and the whole population had to stem from that, you’d have potential problems).
There is something called the 50/500 rule made in 1980 by Australian geneticist Ian Franklin and American biologist Michael Soule. This rule suggests a minimum population of 50 in order to combat inbreeding, though a minimum of 500 to reduce genetic drift.
This is a bit of a generalization, and does vary species to species (species who have higher “litters” like mice and insects can tolerate lower populations than species with lower numbers (like large mammals or huge trees). So in the case of a rhino, 200 is probably enough to introduce enough genetic variability to avoid major inbreeding problems, but there may be some genetic drift, and if the population were to balloon back to normal wild levels, those Rhinos may be significantly genetically different from the wild Rhinos of old as a result of so many offspring coming from a small source gene pool.
EDIT: Wow, thanks for the silvers, responses, and support! I’m happy to have helped, in some small way, make the internet slightly more useful than a big porn box.
EDIT2: Now GOLD?! You flatter me, Reddit!
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