Climate change can drive animals into vulnerable state of low genetic diversity

An international team of researchers led by Charité - Universitätsmedizin Berlin has discovered that the alpine marmot has the least genetic diversity of any known animal to date. A genome study revealed that the species lost its genetic diversity during extreme climate events and has never been able to recover. The alpine marmot is a large rodent from the squirrel family that lives in the high-altitude Alpine meadow. By sequencing the marmot's genome, the researchers found that all of the individual animals were genetically very similar. …