The St. Louis Zoo is attempting to restore populations of the endangered Siberian white tigers by breeding a few pairs. Explain, using micro-evolutionary mechanisms such as bottleneck/founder's effect and natural selection, why the loss of genetic diversity in this population will be a problem when individuals are reintroduced to the wild. (Hint: St. Louis is located in a temperate climate while Siberia is very cold year-round.)
Added by Paige W.
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The St. Louis Zoo is breeding a few pairs of Siberian white tigers, which means that the initial population size is small. This can lead to the bottleneck effect, where the genetic diversity of the population is reduced due to the small number of individuals. Show more…
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