Augmenting gene flow is a powerful tool for the conservation of small, isolated populations. However, genetic rescue attempts have largely been limited to populations at the brink of extinction, in part due to concerns over negative outcomes (e.g., outbreeding depression). Increasing habitat fragmentation may necessitate more proactive genetic management. Broader application of augmented gene flow will, in turn, require rigorous evaluation to increase confidence and identify pitfalls in this approach. To date, there has been no assessment of best monitoring practices for genetic rescue attempts. We used genomically-explicit, individual-based simulations to examine the effectiveness of common approaches for determining whether genetic rescue or outbreeding depression occurred. We found that statistical power to detect the fitness effects of gene flow was high (≥0.8) when effect sizes were large, consistent with previous studies on severely inbred populations. However, smaller fitness effects of gene flow can appreciably affect persistence probability while current evaluation approaches fail to provide reliable inference. The most powerful metric to evaluate genetic rescue attempts depends on the time since gene flow and whether gene flow was beneficial or deleterious. Encouragingly, we find that using multiple metrics provides non-redundant information and improves inference, highlighting the importance of intensive monitoring efforts. Further development of best practices for evaluating genetic rescue attempts will be crucial for a responsible transition to increased use of translocations to decrease extinction risk. Article Impact Statement: Commonly used monitoring approaches frequently fail to detect the substantial conservation benefits of augmented gene flow. This article is protected by copyright. All rights reserved.

中文翻译：

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评估基因拯救尝试的结果

增加基因流是保护小型孤立种群的有力工具。然而，基因拯救尝试在很大程度上仅限于濒临灭绝的种群，部分原因是对负面结果的担忧（例如，远交衰退）。越来越多的栖息地破碎化可能需要更积极的遗传管理。反过来，增强基因流的更广泛应用将需要严格的评估，以增加信心并识别这种方法中的缺陷。迄今为止，尚未对基因拯救尝试的最佳监测实践进行评估。我们使用基因组明确的、基于个体的模拟来检查确定是否发生遗传拯救或远交衰退的常用方法的有效性。我们发现当效应量很大时，检测基因流适应度效应的统计能力很高（≥0.8），这与之前对严重近交种群的研究一致。然而，基因流较小的适应度效应会显着影响持续概率，而当前的评估方法无法提供可靠的推断。评估基因拯救尝试的最有力指标取决于基因流动以来的时间以及基因流动是有益的还是有害的。令人鼓舞的是，我们发现使用多个指标提供了非冗余信息并改进了推理，突出了密集监控工作的重要性。进一步开发评估基因拯救尝试的最佳实践对于负责任地过渡到增加易位使用以降低灭绝风险至关重要。文章影响声明：常用的监测方法经常无法检测到增强基因流的实质性保护效益。本文受版权保护。版权所有。