Minimising adaptation to captivity for conservation of threatened species

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This project aims to determine how evolutionary processes affect the successful release of captive animals. Five years ago the Tasmanian devil was destined for extinction, but scientists now believe they can prevent this. However, they have put all their eggs in one basket – a large captive insurance population which acts as a source for the wild. Adaptation to captivity can have negative consequences for released animals and could threaten the devil programme. Using massive molecular datasets and computational models, this project intends to evaluate different captive breeding scenarios and identify optimal management practices. This will provide environmental policymakers with a new framework for protecting threatened species in Australia and around the world.