Inbreeding impacts on mothering ability, red deer study shows

Date: March 14, 2016

Source: University of Edinburgh

Inbred animals have fewer surviving offspring compared with others, a study of red deer in the wild has found.

The insight could aid the conservation and management of endangered populations of animals in which inbreeding carries a high risk of extinction.

The findings from a long-term study on a Scottish island shows that hinds whose parents were first cousins raise far fewer offspring - about one-quarter as many - to adulthood over their lifetimes compared with others.

This is because inbred hinds are less likely to survive to breeding age, to have a calf in any given year and to rear any calves they do have to independence.

Similarly, male red deer born to first cousins sire only one-twentieth the number of offspring of average adult males.

Inbreeding is known to have adverse effects across many species, but examples of its impact on adult wild animals are rare.

Researchers used a DNA screening tool to gain a highly detailed measure of inbreeding for each individual deer living at the study site on the Isle of Rum in the Inner Hebrides.

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