Abstract Genetic rescue – ameliorating inbreeding depression and restoring genetic diversity of inbred populations through gene flow - is valuable in wildlife conservation. Empirically validated recommendations for genetic rescue supported by evolutionary genetics theory advise maximizing genetic diversity in target populations. Instead, recent papers based on genomic studies of island foxes, Isle Royal wolves, and simulation modeling claim it would be preferable to minimize introduction of harmful variation by avoiding genetic rescue altogether or by selecting partially-inbred sources presumed to have fewer harmful alleles. We examined the assertions and evidence underlying these new recommendations. The claim that long-term persistence of a few small inbred populations invalidates the small population paradigm commits the survivorship fallacy by ignoring population extinctions through inbreeding. The claim that island foxes show no inbreeding depression conflicts with elevated levels of putatively harmful alleles, low fecundity, and island-specific disease susceptibilities. The claim that the history of Isle Royale wolves represents likely outcomes of genetic rescues using immigrants from larger source populations is invalid: the unplanned addition of a single male to an inbred population capped at ~25 individuals does not represent sound genetic rescue. The simulations in Robinson et al. (2018, 2019) and Kyriazis et al. (2019 pre-print) apply several unrealistic assumptions and parameter distributions that disfavor large, outbred sources for genetic rescue. Accordingly, the simulations' conclusions conflict profoundly with those of >120 meta-analysed real datasets, and do not overturn current empirically validated recommendations to maximize genetic diversity in the target population.

中文翻译：

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遗传拯救：对证据的批评支持最大限度地提高遗传多样性，而不是最大限度地减少假定有害的遗传变异的引入

摘要 遗传拯救——通过基因流动改善近交衰退和恢复近交种群的遗传多样性——在野生动物保护中很有价值。由进化遗传学理论支持的经实证验证的遗传拯救建议建议最大限度地提高目标人群的遗传多样性。相反，最近基于岛屿狐狸、皇家岛狼和模拟模型的基因组研究的论文声称，最好通过完全避免基因拯救或选择假定具有较少有害等位基因的部分近交来源来最大程度地减少有害变异的引入。我们检查了这些新建议背后的断言和证据。少数小近交种群的长期存在使小种群范式无效的说法通过忽略近亲繁殖导致的种群灭绝而犯了生存谬论。岛狐没有表现出近亲繁殖衰退的说法与假定有害的等位基因水平升高、繁殖力低和岛屿特有的疾病易感性相冲突。声称皇家岛狼的历史代表了使用来自更大来源种群的移民进行基因拯救的可能结果的说法是无效的：在大约 25 只个体的近交种群中无计划地添加单个雄性并不代表良好的基因拯救。Robinson 等人的模拟。(2018, 2019) 和 Kyriazis 等人。（2019 预印本）应用了几个不切实际的假设和参数分布，这些假设和参数分布不利于大，用于基因拯救的远交来源。因此，模拟的结论与超过 120 个经元分析的真实数据集的结论存在深刻冲突，并且不会推翻当前经过实证验证的建议，以最大限度地提高目标人群的遗传多样性。