For many animals, genetic diversity is crucial to survival because it affords the population some flexibility when encountering changes in the environment. Individuals may be lost, but variation helps protect whole populations from being wiped out in one fell swoop. Enter the vaquita (Phocoena sinus): the world’s smallest cetacean. These happy-looking porpoises, which occupy a small area in the Gulf of California, are critically endangered, with only 10 individuals estimated to remain in existence, giving conservationists doubts about the species’ survival due to genetic inbreeding.
A study published yesterday (May 5) in Science examined genomic data from archived vaquita tissue samples and found that genetic diversity has been low yet stable among the animals for the last 1,000 years or so, indicating that the current lack of variation should not drive the species to extinction. The biggest threat to the vaquita’s continued existence is fishing, as they often become entangled in illegal gillnets.
