Increasing genetic diversity and maintaining evolutionary processes are primary goals of conservation translocations, which involve the intentional movement of an at‐risk species to establish new populations or augment existing populations, with the ultimate goal of reversing declines. Much debate has focused on how to select source material for plant translocations, with early approaches focusing primarily on maintaining the genetic uniqueness of populations. However, recent strategies often advocate mixing population sources during translocation to increase genetic diversity and re‐establish connectivity. Yet, despite hundreds of translocations programmes with at‐risk plant species presently underway (e.g. Silcock et al., 2019), few studies have conducted thorough assessments of the effects of mixing population sources on both the genetic diversity and fitness of translocated populations. The study by Van Rossum et al. (2020) in this issue of Molecular Ecology uses detailed assessments of genetic parameters and fitness to understand the outcomes of mixing two genetically differentiated source populations in translocations of the rare, self‐incompatible perennial herb, Arnica montana, whose populations are declining at low elevations in Western Europe. They examine genetic changes throughout the translocation process (source populations to F1 offspring) and demonstrate the maintenance of high genetic diversity in successive generations for all three translocations. Translocated populations exhibited high contemporary pollen flow, substantial admixture between source populations and low inbreeding in F1 offspring. Importantly, they found no evidence of outbreeding depression in F1 offspring. This work shows that genetically mixing source populations can result in optimal genetic outcomes in translocations of declining plant species and exemplifies how multigenerational genetic monitoring and fitness assessments can be used to evaluate the success of experimental translocations.

中文翻译：

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基因监测评估通过混合基因库恢复稀有植物种群的成功

增加遗传多样性和维持进化过程是保护易位的主要目标，这涉及到有风险的物种有意移动以建立新种群或增加现有种群，其最终目标是扭转下降趋势。许多争论集中在如何选择植物易位的原料上，早期的方法主要集中在维持种群的遗传独特性上。但是，最近的策略通常主张在迁移过程中混合种群来源，以增加遗传多样性并重新建立联系。然而，尽管目前正在进行数百种濒危植物的易位计划（例如Silcock等，2019），很少有研究对混合种群来源对遗传多样性和易位种群适应性的影响进行了彻底的评估。Van Rossum等人的研究。（2020）在《分子生态学》杂志中使用遗传参数和适应度的详细评估来了解将两种遗传分化的源种群混入罕见的，自我不相容的多年生草本植物的易位中的结果，山金车，西欧低海拔地区的人口正在减少。他们检查了整个易位过程（F1后代的源种群）的遗传变化，并证明了这三个易位的后代都保持了高遗传多样性。易位种群表现出较高的当代花粉流量，源种群之间的大量混合以及F1后代的近交率低。重要的是，他们没有发现F1后代有远亲衰退的迹象。这项工作表明，遗传混合源种群可以在下降的植物物种易位中获得最佳的遗传结果，并举例说明了如何使用多代遗传监测和适应性评估来评估实验易位的成功。