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Full-Text Articles in Animal Sciences
An Exploration Of The Effects Of Genetic Drift On The Endangered Red-Cockaded Woodpecker, Ryan E. Nelson
An Exploration Of The Effects Of Genetic Drift On The Endangered Red-Cockaded Woodpecker, Ryan E. Nelson
Theses and Dissertations
The Red-cockaded Woodpecker (RCW) (Picoides borealis) is classified as an endangered species under the Endangered Species Act of 1973 due to habitat fragmentation and prescribed burn suppression. Given the endangerment of the RCW, the genetic variation of the small populations will decrease over time due to random genetic drift. The only method of battling the negative effects of random genetic drift is to move, or translocate, genetically diverse birds into the fragmented populations thereby increasing the genetic diversity of the small populations. The objective of this research effort was to explore the effects of random genetic drift on small RCW …