Abstract 174 – Maintaining bears’ adaptive potential: monitoring and assessing genetic indicators in Ursidae

Emily Puckett and Alexander Kopatz

Habitat loss and fragmentation have impacted populations of all bear species, and often
contribute to population decline. This direct loss can be further influenced through lost genetic
diversity. Genetic diversity is the basis for bears’ resilience to perturbations such as disease and
environmental change. If population genetic diversity decreases, fitness may also decrease
leading to reductions in census population size over time, and thus lower adaptive capacity. A
danger especially to small, isolated, and threatened bear populations.
Biodiversity preservation efforts have largely focused on species and ecosystems, but recent
momentum from the 2022 Kunming-Montreal CBD (Convention of Biodiversity) meeting
specifically emphasized protection of genetic diversity within wild populations as a new goal.
Thus, all parties need to assess and report on genetic diversity in the future. Reporting should
preferably be done in a standardized way and three genetic indicators have been proposed.
Genetic analyses require substantial resources of both time and money. Therefore, two genetic
indicators to measure the adaptive potential by proxy have been developed that enable
assessing the genetic diversity without having DNA-data. The third indicator relies on genetic
data. These indicators include: the proportion of populations for a species with large census
size (>500 individuals), proportion of extant populations over time, and if species are being
monitored using genetic data.
Our aim is to organize the global bear community to apply these indicators to their focal
populations for all eight species. This will aid regional, national, and international policy,
management and other stakeholders in decision making for maintaining adaptive potential, and
conservation of bears. We present the scientific basis for the importance of adaptive potential
and the CBD metrics used to assess, outline current data gathering approaches, and issue a call
to action.