TY - JOUR

T1 - Genetic diversity loss in the Anthropocene

AU - Exposito-Alonso, Moises

AU - Booker, Tom R.

AU - Czech, Lucas

AU - Gillespie, Lauren

AU - Hateley, Shannon

AU - Kyriazis, Christopher C.

AU - Lang, Patricia L. M.

AU - Leventhal, Laura

AU - Nogues-Bravo, David

AU - Pagowski, Veronica

AU - Ruffley, Megan

AU - Spence, Jeffrey P.

AU - Arana, Sebastian E. Toro

AU - Weiss, Clemens L.

AU - Zess, Erin

N1 - Authors retain copyright and choose from several distribution/reuse options under which to make the article available (CC BY, CC BY-NC, CC BY-ND, CC BY-NC-ND, CC0, or no reuse).

PY - 2022

Y1 - 2022

N2 - More species than ever before are at risk of extinction due to anthropogenic habitat loss and climate change. But even species that are not threatened have seen reductions in their populations and geographic ranges, likely impacting their genetic diversity. Although preserving genetic diversity is key to maintaining adaptability of species, we lack predictive tools and global estimates of genetic diversity loss across ecosystems. By bridging theories of biodiversity and population genetics, we introduce a mathematical framework to understand the loss of naturally occurring DNA mutations within decreasing habitat within a species. Analysing genome-wide variation data of 10,095 geo-referenced individuals from 20 plant and animal species, we show that genome-wide diversity follows a power law with geographic area (the mutations-area relationship), which can predict genetic diversity loss in spatial computer simulations of local population extinctions. Given pre-21st century values of ecosystem transformations, we estimate that over 10% of genetic diversity may already be lost, surpassing the United Nations targets for genetic preservation. These estimated losses could rapidly accelerate with advancing climate change and habitat destruction, highlighting the need for forecasting tools that facilitate implementation of policies to protect genetic resources globally.

AB - More species than ever before are at risk of extinction due to anthropogenic habitat loss and climate change. But even species that are not threatened have seen reductions in their populations and geographic ranges, likely impacting their genetic diversity. Although preserving genetic diversity is key to maintaining adaptability of species, we lack predictive tools and global estimates of genetic diversity loss across ecosystems. By bridging theories of biodiversity and population genetics, we introduce a mathematical framework to understand the loss of naturally occurring DNA mutations within decreasing habitat within a species. Analysing genome-wide variation data of 10,095 geo-referenced individuals from 20 plant and animal species, we show that genome-wide diversity follows a power law with geographic area (the mutations-area relationship), which can predict genetic diversity loss in spatial computer simulations of local population extinctions. Given pre-21st century values of ecosystem transformations, we estimate that over 10% of genetic diversity may already be lost, surpassing the United Nations targets for genetic preservation. These estimated losses could rapidly accelerate with advancing climate change and habitat destruction, highlighting the need for forecasting tools that facilitate implementation of policies to protect genetic resources globally.

KW - ecology

U2 - 10.1126/science.abn5642

DO - 10.1126/science.abn5642

M3 - Journal article

C2 - 36137047

VL - 377

SP - 1431

EP - 1435

JO - Science

JF - Science

SN - 0036-8075

IS - 6613

ER -