Populations with a variety of genes can help a species adapt to threats like diseases and climate change.
Protected areas like national parks and national monuments provide a refuge for not just a wide array of different species, but for a diversity of genes within those species, according to new research.
The Trump Administration’s plan to shrink several national monuments could result not just in smaller populations of animals, but in a loss of genetic diversity that could make those species less able to adapt to a shifting environment, said Coleen Thompson, who studies conservation genetics at Ohio State University in Columbus. Read more in Inside Science.