
@article {160477,
	title = {Conservation: Sequencing and saving the Saola?},
	journal = {Curr Biol},
	volume = {35},
	year = {2025},
	month = {2025 Sep 22},
	pages = {R878-R880},
	abstract = {<p>The Critically Endangered Saola is a unique and cryptic Asian member of the cattle family. A new study analyses its genome, identifying evolutionary affinities, genetic variation and a possible path for conservation through captive breeding. But saving the Saola from extinction will require much more.</p>
},
	keywords = {Animals, Cattle, Conservation of Natural Resources, Endangered Species, Genetic Variation, Genome},
	issn = {1879-0445},
	doi = {10.1016/j.cub.2025.07.086},
	author = {Ramakrishnan, Uma}
}
@article {149377,
	title = {Unraveling the genomic diversity and admixture history of captive tigers in the United States.},
	journal = {Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A},
	volume = {121},
	year = {2024},
	month = {2024 Sep 24},
	pages = {e2402924121},
	abstract = {<p>Genomic studies of endangered species have primarily focused on describing diversity patterns and resolving phylogenetic relationships, with the overarching goal of informing conservation efforts. However, few studies have investigated genomic diversity housed in captive populations. For tigers (), captive individuals vastly outnumber those in the wild, but their diversity remains largely unexplored. Privately owned captive tiger populations have remained an enigma in the conservation community, with some believing that these individuals are severely inbred, while others believe they may be a source of now-extinct diversity. Here, we present a large-scale genetic study of the private (non-zoo) captive tiger population in the United States, also known as "Generic" tigers. We find that the Generic tiger population has an admixture fingerprint comprising all six extant wild tiger subspecies. Of the 138 Generic individuals sequenced for the purpose of this study, no individual had ancestry from only one subspecies. We show that the Generic tiger population has a comparable amount of genetic diversity relative to most wild subspecies, few private variants, and fewer deleterious mutations. We observe inbreeding coefficients similar to wild populations, although there are some individuals within both the Generic and wild populations that are substantially inbred. Additionally, we develop a reference panel for tigers that can be used with imputation to accurately distinguish individuals and assign ancestry with ultralow coverage (0.25{\texttimes}) data. By providing a cost-effective alternative to whole-genome sequencing (WGS), the reference panel provides a resource to assist in tiger conservation efforts for both ex- and in situ populations.</p>
},
	keywords = {Animals, Animals, Zoo, Conservation of Natural Resources, Endangered Species, Genetic Variation, Genome, Genomics, Phylogeny, Tigers, United States},
	issn = {1091-6490},
	doi = {10.1073/pnas.2402924121},
	author = {Armstrong, Ellie E and Mooney, Jazlyn A and Solari, Katherine A and Kim, Bernard Y and Barsh, Gregory S and Grant, Victoria B and Greenbaum, Gili and Kaelin, Christopher B and Panchenko, Katya and Pickrell, Joseph K and Rosenberg, Noah and Ryder, Oliver A and Yokoyama, Tsuya and Ramakrishnan, Uma and Petrov, Dmitri A and Hadly, Elizabeth A}
}
