But the endangered Vancouver Island marmot doesn't have much choice. Now, Jamie Gorrell, a biology professor at Vancouver Island University, is studying a potential new problem: inbreeding between the rodents and the resulting lack of genetic diversity. Consequences of captive breedingGorrell said the captive breeding program has been trying to avoid the inbreeding of marmots, one of the largest members of the squirrel family. Vancouver Island marmots live in colonies either in the forest or on rocky mountaintops. Gorrell will be studying the genetic diversity of both wild and captive marmots through genomic sequencing, which maps out DNA.

Source: CBC News October 17, 2018 21:33 UTC