Many species have undergone dramatic population size declines over the past centuries. Although stochastic genetic processes during and after such declines are thought to elevate the risk of extinction, comparative analyses of genomic data from several endangered species suggest little concordance between genome-wide diversity and current population sizes. This is likely because species-specific life-history traits and ancient bottlenecks overshadow the genetic effect of recent demographic declines. Therefore, we advocate that temporal sampling of genomic data provides a more accurate approach to quantify genetic threats in endangered species. Specifically, genomic data from predecline museum specimens will provide valuable baseline data that enable accurate estimation of recent decreases in genome-wide diversity, increases in inbreeding levels, and accumulation of deleterious genetic variation.

在过去的几个世纪中，许多物种的种群数量急剧减少。尽管人们认为这种下降期间和下降之后的随机遗传过程会增加灭绝的风险，但对几种濒危物种的基因组数据进行的比较分析表明，全基因组多样性与当前种群规模之间几乎没有一致性。这可能是因为特定物种的生活史特征和古老的瓶颈使最近人口统计学下降的遗传效应蒙上了阴影。因此，我们主张对基因组数据进行时间采样可提供一种更准确的方法来量化濒危物种的遗传威胁。具体而言，来自衰落前的博物馆标本的基因组数据将提供有价值的基线数据，从而能够准确估算出近期全基因组多样性的减少，近亲繁殖水平的提高，