Abstract
Less than a decade ago, one of the leading conservation biologists of our time (G. Caughley) claimed that there was little evidence that inbreeding contributes to extinction. And he was right. Not because there were studies supporting his statement, but because there were virtually no studies supporting the opposite view. Recent work shows that ability to fight pathogens and show tolerance against acidity and UV radiation becomes severely compromised during inbreeding, resulting in drastic loss of animal lives in free-ranging populations. The current proposal specifically targets these synergistic routes to fitness erosion in a vertebrate group that currently is experiencing a conservation crisis unparalleled by anything in modern time, Global Amphibian Decline.
Sweden