Low Diversity
Devil in danger
Tasmanian devils have very low genetic diversity
Two new complete sets of Tasmanian devil genetic blueprints hold some good news and bad news for the species. The bad news is that the marsupial's genetic diversity is among the lowest known for any species. The good news is that the devil's low diversity has a long history and may not be reason for as much concern as once thought. This low genetic diversity "does not mean the species is doomed," says genomicist Stephan Schuster of Pennsylvania State University. "If you maintain the entire diversity this can still be a viable species." An international team of researchers led by Schuster and Webb Miller, also of Penn State, deciphered the genetic blueprints of Tasmanian devils named Cedric and Spirit that hail from opposite ends of Tasmania, the team reports online June 27 in theProceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. The two devils also represent a contrast in their response to the infectious cancer that has decimated wild devil populations. The work was done as part of an effort to better understand the deadly disease and save the species. Cedric was one of the few devils whose immune system could fight off the infectious cancer, which started in a single long-dead devil and has since swept over more than half the island. As part of efforts to study the disease, Cedric survived two attempts to infect him with the facial tumor disease, but finally succumbed to a third strain. Spirit was already infected with five tumors and was near death when she was captured. Researchers hoped that cataloging and comparing the two animals' genomes would show why Cedric was partially immune to the fatal cancer while Spirit and so many others are not. The initial analysis of the two genomes doesn't provide a clear answer, but researchers believe that further work will reveal secrets to defeating the deadly disease that may be buried in the animal's blueprints. Scientists suspect that most devils have variants in certain genes that make them more susceptible to the tumor disease. "The really exciting discoveries are yet to come," says Katherine Belov, a geneticist at the University of Sydney who was not involved in the study. "We are very excited to be able to jump in and start mining this genome."
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