From: rokimoto557@gmail.com   
      
   https://abcnews.go.com/US/survival-snow-leopard-populations-prec   
   rious-researchers/story?id=126327136   
      
   The PNAS article is paywalled.  Their measure of genetic diversity is   
   heterozygousity.  Sumatran tigers and cheetahs have greater   
   heterozygousity, but may be more inbred.  Heterozygousity isn't a good   
   measure for the amount of genetic diversity because it involves   
   individuals of distinct populations that are obviously genetically   
   separated and divergent from each other.  While all cheetahs are as   
   closely related as cousins, my guess is that a lot of the snow leopards   
   are not that genetically related.  The paper has 47 samples that   
   identify 3 distinct populations (India, Russia, China) that are inbred   
   within populations.  They are inbred within populations, but the   
   populations are genetically distinct.  They found 379,861 private SNPs   
   in the North and 364,010 private SNPs to the South, and 598,449 SNPs   
   shared between populations.  This just means that heterozygousity could   
   more than double just by crossing a Snow Leopard from the South to the   
   North.   
      
   What they need to do is somehow restore the genetic connections between   
   populations that have now been isolated from each other.  If this isn't   
   done the populations will either survive (if they have a low enough   
   genetic load) or go to extinction if inbreeding depression becomes an issue.   
      
   The decrease in heterozygousity may be due to a more ancient population   
   bottleneck because they have fewer runs of homozygousity (recent   
   inbreeding) than puma.  The high number of private SNPs between north   
   and south indicates that these populations are derived from different   
   bottlenecked populations.  Where did these populations exist during the   
   last ice age when their current habitat was likely not habitable.  My   
   guess is that during the ice age their territory was greatly expanded,   
   and that the bottle neck occurred during the last warm period when they   
   would have been restricted to territory similar to what they exist in   
   today.  Their populations would have been isolated from each other, and   
   last warm period things may have been even warmer and their territory   
   may have been more restricted than it has become with the current human   
   factor.  Hunting has decimated the current populations, but last warm   
   period more ice melted than has yet melted, so we haven't yet seen the   
   extent that their habitat had been reduced last time.  It just means   
   that things are going to get worse then they are now.   
      
   Ron Okimoto   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
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