Inbreeding Depression - Species Not Subject To Inbreeding Depression

Species Not Subject To Inbreeding Depression

Inbreeding depression is not a phenomenon that will inevitably occur. Given enough time and a sufficiently (but not too) small gene pool, deleterious alleles may be eliminated by natural selection and genetic drift.

Under most circumstances, this is a rare occurrence though, as the gene pool cannot become too large (thereby increasing the odds of new deleterious alleles appearing through mutation) nor too small (resulting in outright inbreeding depression). Among island endemic populations, however, a high resistance to inbreeding depression is often seen. These derive from very small initial populations that must have been viable, and panmixia in the early stages of speciation was usually thorough. This will result in a very comprehensive elimination of deleterious recessive alleles at least. The second type of inbreeding depression – caused by overdominant heterozygous alleles – is impossible to eliminate by panmixia. However, local conditions may result in an altered selective advantage, so that the fitness of the heterozygous genotype is lowered.

Example taxa not subject to significant inbreeding depression despite extremely low effective population sizes:

Animals

• Chatham Islands Robin
• Laysan Duck (data equivocal; severe population fluctuations probably natural)
• Mauritius Kestrel
• Naked Mole Rat (mammal displaying eusocial reproductive structure and low genetic variation)
• Stegodyphus dumicola and some other social spiders (live in highly inbred colonies)
• Thai Ridgeback, a dog breed

Plants

• Dandelion (reproduces asexually through apomixis)

• Nihoa Carnation
• Toromiro