Genetic and Heredity
The cheetah is one of the world's most well-known animals but the majority of people don't know that the cheetah population is slowly decimating. Although the cheetahs have survived 2 historical bottleneck effects, National Geographic came out with an article titled "Cheetahs: On the Brink of Extinction, Again," where they stated that the previous bottleneck effect has reduced the cheetah's population tremendously, and yet they are heading toward another one right now.
Because cheetahs have already been through previous bottleneck effects, not to mention humans interference, their numbers have dwindled and when it comes to genetic diversity, as you can guess, it's probably on the lower end of genetic variation. A low level of genetic variation can be deleterious due to the population not being able to compel to the changing environment and being susceptible to new predators, parasites, diseases, and climatic conditions (Lacy, 1987). When studying cheetahs first encounter with the bottleneck effect, it's hard to pinpoint when it actually occurred but it is roughly estimated to have
taken place close to the end of the last ice age when large vertebrates went extinct on some continent (Raymond, Marilyn, and O'Brien, 1993). Near the early 1980s, it was said that the there were 2 major
subspecies of cheetahs which were
the first, A. Jubatus Jubatus from southern Africa, and second one being A. Jubatus Raineyi
from eastern Africa, which puts to perspective as to
how cheetahs were already facing low level of genetic variation
from early on. A series of research was then conducted where they collected cellular DNA from the white blood cell (leukocytes) from the unconfined eastern subspecies A. Jubatus Raineyi possessed in Kenya. In addition, they also collected samples from unassociated captive cheetahs of the southern subspecies A. Jubatus Jubatus possessed in Kruger national park (Raymond, Marilyn, and O'Brien, 1993). From the research, they found that of 167 polymorphic fragments from the 3 restriction enzymes, 29% was distinctive to narrowly lone subspecies, whereas 71% of the fragments frequently appeared on the pair. To reduce inbreeding and to increase genetic variation, a group of organizations has started captive breeding which will and have already made changes regarding genetic diversity.
