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Some hope and many concerns on the future of the vaquita

Heredity (2022)Cite this article

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Recently, Robinson et al. (2022) concluded that “The critically endangered vaquita is not doomed to extinction by inbreeding depression”. This stems from the assumption that, because of its low amount of deleterious variation, the inbreeding load B (i.e., the fitness load ascribed to recessive deleterious components that is hidden in heterozygotes and which fuels future fitness inbreeding depression), should be negligible in this extremely endangered porpoise, represented by about 10 individuals living in the northern-most part of the Gulf of California, Mexico. Like Robinson et al. (2022), we do not think the vaquita is doomed and we are in favor of encouraging conservation efforts in critically endangered populations (Garcia-Dorado 2015; Hedrick and García-Dorado 2016). However, we think the optimistic view of Robinson et al. (2022) is unsupported by the evidence and their approach can be dangerous to the conservation of the vaquita and other endangered species.

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Acknowledgements

We are grateful to four anonymous reviewers for their useful comments and suggestions. This work was partially supported by grant PGC2018-095810-B-I00 (Ministerio de Ciencia, Innovación y Universidades. Gobierno de España) to AG-D.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Departamento de Genetica, Fisiologia y Microbiologia, Facultad de Biologia, Universidad Complutense, 28040, Madrid, Spain

    Aurora Garcia-Dorado

  2. School of Life Sciences, Arizona State University, Tempe, AZ, 85287, USA

    Philip Hedrick

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  1. Aurora Garcia-Dorado
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  2. Philip Hedrick
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Correspondence to Aurora Garcia-Dorado.

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Garcia-Dorado, A., Hedrick, P. Some hope and many concerns on the future of the vaquita. Heredity (2022). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41437-022-00573-7

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