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Conservation of genetic uniqueness of populations may increase extinction likelihood of endangered species: the case of Australian mammals

Overview of attention for article published in Frontiers in Zoology, July 2016
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About this Attention Score

  • In the top 5% of all research outputs scored by Altmetric
  • Among the highest-scoring outputs from this source (#50 of 700)
  • High Attention Score compared to outputs of the same age (95th percentile)
  • High Attention Score compared to outputs of the same age and source (94th percentile)

Mentioned by

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1 news outlet
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61 X users

Citations

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122 Dimensions

Readers on

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203 Mendeley
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Title
Conservation of genetic uniqueness of populations may increase extinction likelihood of endangered species: the case of Australian mammals
Published in
Frontiers in Zoology, July 2016
DOI 10.1186/s12983-016-0163-z
Pubmed ID
Authors

Andrew R. Weeks, Jakub Stoklosa, Ary A. Hoffmann

Abstract

As increasingly fragmented and isolated populations of threatened species become subjected to climate change, invasive species and other stressors, there is an urgent need to consider adaptive potential when making conservation decisions rather than focussing on past processes. In many cases, populations identified as unique and currently managed separately suffer increased risk of extinction through demographic and genetic processes. Other populations currently not at risk are likely to be on a trajectory where declines in population size and fitness soon appear inevitable. Using datasets from natural Australian mammal populations, we show that drift processes are likely to be driving uniqueness in populations of many threatened species as a result of small population size and fragmentation. Conserving and managing such remnant populations separately will therefore often decrease their adaptive potential and increase species extinction risk. These results highlight the need for a paradigm shift in conservation biology practise; strategies need to focus on the preservation of genetic diversity at the species level, rather than population, subspecies or evolutionary significant unit. The introduction of new genetic variants into populations through in situ translocation needs to be considered more broadly in conservation programs as a way of decreasing extinction risk by increasing neutral genetic diversity which may increase the adaptive potential of populations if adaptive variation is also increased.

X Demographics

X Demographics

The data shown below were collected from the profiles of 61 X users who shared this research output. Click here to find out more about how the information was compiled.
Mendeley readers

Mendeley readers

The data shown below were compiled from readership statistics for 203 Mendeley readers of this research output. Click here to see the associated Mendeley record.

Geographical breakdown

Country Count As %
Finland 1 <1%
Netherlands 1 <1%
Unknown 201 99%

Demographic breakdown

Readers by professional status Count As %
Student > Ph. D. Student 38 19%
Researcher 38 19%
Student > Master 35 17%
Student > Bachelor 30 15%
Student > Postgraduate 8 4%
Other 22 11%
Unknown 32 16%
Readers by discipline Count As %
Agricultural and Biological Sciences 95 47%
Environmental Science 27 13%
Biochemistry, Genetics and Molecular Biology 26 13%
Veterinary Science and Veterinary Medicine 3 1%
Social Sciences 3 1%
Other 8 4%
Unknown 41 20%
Attention Score in Context

Attention Score in Context

This research output has an Altmetric Attention Score of 47. This is our high-level measure of the quality and quantity of online attention that it has received. This Attention Score, as well as the ranking and number of research outputs shown below, was calculated when the research output was last mentioned on 30 December 2019.
All research outputs
#899,569
of 25,587,485 outputs
Outputs from Frontiers in Zoology
#50
of 700 outputs
Outputs of similar age
#17,093
of 371,337 outputs
Outputs of similar age from Frontiers in Zoology
#2
of 17 outputs
Altmetric has tracked 25,587,485 research outputs across all sources so far. Compared to these this one has done particularly well and is in the 96th percentile: it's in the top 5% of all research outputs ever tracked by Altmetric.
So far Altmetric has tracked 700 research outputs from this source. They typically receive a lot more attention than average, with a mean Attention Score of 20.9. This one has done particularly well, scoring higher than 93% of its peers.
Older research outputs will score higher simply because they've had more time to accumulate mentions. To account for age we can compare this Altmetric Attention Score to the 371,337 tracked outputs that were published within six weeks on either side of this one in any source. This one has done particularly well, scoring higher than 95% of its contemporaries.
We're also able to compare this research output to 17 others from the same source and published within six weeks on either side of this one. This one has done particularly well, scoring higher than 94% of its contemporaries.