15 guanacos reached a Falklands island in the 1930s; genes survived two crashes

In the late 1930s, a small group of guanacos, native South American camelids, was shipped from southern Patagonia to Staats Island, a remote, treeless Falklands island. Only fifteen animals founded the entire herd. Roughly twenty-five years later, a cull reduced it from about 300 animals to between 10 and 20. Such a herd would be expected to lose much of its genetic variety. Yet scientists who studied the herd more than six decades after its founding found something truly surprising. Their analysis showed the island herd still holds genetic diversity comparable to most mainland populations, despite two severe population crashes.Why John Hamilton shipped fifteen guanacos to Staats Island in the late 1930sAccording to a 2014 study, ‘Maintenance of Genetic Diversity in an Introduced Island Population of Guanacos after Seven Decades and Two Severe Demographic Bottlenecks: Implications for Camelid Conservation’ by Benito González, Pablo Orozco-terWengel, Rainer von Borries, Warren Johnson, William Franklin and Juan Marín in the journal PLOS One, guanacos were brought to the Falkland Islands, also known as Islas Malvinas, in the late 1930s by John Hamilton. He introduced them, together w...