This got me interested as I was reading about Diego the tortoise who revived the species from extinction. This may be good and well but what happens to the inbreeding which is said to weaken the genetics of the animals and also magnifying the chances of recessive geenes manifesting.
In: Biology
>how do animals that come back from extinction overcome inbreeding problems
They don’t. All the inbreeding problems are there. While two closely related animals breeding greatly increases the risk of birth defects manifesting in their offspring, it isn’t guaranteed to happen. When populations are reduced to just a handful of breeding pairs, it’s called a [population bottleneck](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Population_bottleneck). Humans are thought to gone through such events in the distant past. More recently, cheetahs are thought to have experienced one due to their abnormally unvaried gene pool.
On top of the risk associated from breeding with close relatives, the resulting gene pool is much less diverse and thus more vulnerable to disease due to the reduced adaptability. Over time, random mutations gradually introduce more genetic diversity into the population and reduces these risks, but it takes millions of generations to do so.
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