Reacción a "Genetic diversity has decreased in more than 600 species in the last three decades"

All species must have a certain variability between their populations and between the individuals that make them up. This variability, the product of past and present adaptation to different types of environmental conditions, is what guarantees future survival. The greater the diversity of forms and physiologies, for example, the greater the chances that some group of individuals will be able to survive any change or alteration in the conditions in which they live. It must be borne in mind that the loss of variability can be the first step towards the decline and extinction of a species and that each extinction, even if it is local, alters the functioning of the system of relationships in which each species operates and, therefore, increases the probability of collapse of the entire system.

This paper reviews the results of three decades of studies analysing the temporal evolution of the genetic diversity of more than 600 marine and terrestrial species well distributed throughout the tree of life. Considering that genetic diversity represents the variability of adaptations, the results offer a discouraging but expected panorama, given the known power of human action on the living systems of the planet we inhabit.

This exploration of published data concludes that the dominant trend is the loss of genetic diversity over time. A more detailed and exhaustive analysis also indicates that this loss of variability appears even in those species in which the existence of a decline in their populations had not been verified. Fortunately, the authors also confirm that conservation actions reduce the probability of loss of genetic variability although, once reduced, it is very difficult or almost impossible to recover that variability produced by the action of evolution over thousands of generations. If scientific data and empirical evidence should be the basis for planning the economy and political actions, this study contributes one more piece of information to the long list that supports the need for a change of course in our model of infinite growth and our crazy conception of development.