swinger: a user-friendly computer program to establish captive breeding groups that minimize relatedness without...

Area of Science:

• Conservation Biology
• Population Genetics
• Bioinformatics

Background:

• Captive breeding programs aim to maintain genetic diversity and minimize inbreeding for species persistence.
• Assumptions of unrelated founders are often violated due to anthropogenic impacts, leading to high relatedness and inbreeding.
• Uncertain pedigrees in group-breeding species complicate breeding group selection.

Purpose of the Study:

• To introduce 'swinger,' a software tool for constructing breeding groups using molecular estimates of relatedness and inbreeding.
• To address the challenge of computationally intractable combinations in selecting optimal breeding groups.
• To provide a user-friendly solution for ex situ conservation biology.

Main Methods:

• Utilizes molecular marker data (microsatellites, SNPs) to estimate inbreeding and pairwise relatedness.
• Employs algorithms to efficiently identify breeding groups (≥two individuals) that minimize relatedness and exclude inbred individuals.
• Allows user-specified parameters to tailor solutions to species mating systems and resource availability.

Main Results:

• Demonstrates the efficiency of 'swinger' through empirical examples and simulations.
• Confirms the software's ability to handle complex breeding group selection problems.
• Highlights the accessibility of required molecular data through next-generation sequencing.

Conclusions:

• 'Swinger' provides an effective and accessible computational solution for optimizing breeding group composition in conservation programs.
• Molecular data-based approaches are crucial for overcoming limitations of traditional breeding strategies.
• The open-source software facilitates improved genetic management of threatened species in captivity.