THEORY PREDICTS THE UNEVEN DISTRIBUTION OF GENETIC DIVERSITY WITHIN SPECIES

Nature Press Release

It is known that a disproportionate amount of the world's species are concentrated in a relatively small number of biodiversity 'hotspots'. It is also true that within individual species, genetic diversity is concentrated in a small number of genetically diverse sub-populations. Describing this finding in this week's Nature, Erik M. Rauch and Yaneer Bar-Yam show that the fate of small but diverse sub-populations sways the fate of populations as a whole, because the relatively easy destruction of a small but diverse population takes the guts out of the diversity of the entire species. This finding is particularly important because of its universality, coming as it does from a theoretical study of the properties of genealogical networks. Despite its seemingly rarefied origins, this work could have immediate consequences for conservation policy.

CONTACT
Erik M. Rauch (NECSI, Cambridge, MA USA and MIT, Cambridge, MA USA)
Tel: +1 617 547 4100, E-mail: rauch@necsi.org

Yaneer Bar-Yam (NECSI, Cambridge, MA USA)
Tel: +1 617 547 4100, E-mail: yaneer@necsi.org

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