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Martin, E.J.* ; Speak, S.A.* ; Urban, L. ; Morales, H.E.* ; van Oosterhout, C.*

Sonification of genomic data to represent genetic load in Zoo populations.

Zoo Biol., DOI: 10.1002/zoo.21859 (2024)
Verlagsversion DOI PMC
Open Access Gold (Paid Option)
Creative Commons Lizenzvertrag
Maintaining a diverse gene pool is important in the captive management of zoo populations, especially in endangered species such as the pink pigeon (Nesoenas mayeri). However, due to the limited number of breeding individuals and relaxed natural selection, the loss of variation and accumulation of harmful variants is inevitable. Inbreeding results in a loss of fitness (i.e., inbreeding depression), principally because related parents are more likely to transmit a copy of the same recessive deleterious genetic variant to their offspring. Genomics-informed captive breeding can manage harmful variants by artificial selection, reducing the genetic load by avoiding the inheritance of two copies of the same harmful variant. To explain this concept in an interactive way to zoo visitors, we developed a sonification game to represent the fitness impacts of harmful variants by detuning notes in a familiar musical melody (i.e., Beethoven's Für Elise). Conceptually, zoo visitors play a game aiming to create the most optimal pink pigeon offspring in terms of inbreeding depression. They select virtual crosses between pink pigeon individuals and listen for the detuning of the melody, which represents the realised load of the resultant offspring. Here we present the sonification algorithm and the results of an online survey to see whether participants could identify the most and least optimal offspring from three potential pink pigeon offspring. Of our 98 respondents, 85 (86.7%) correctly identified the least optimal offspring, 73 (74.5%) correctly identified the most optimal, and 62 (63.3%) identified both the most and least optimal offspring using only the sonification.
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Publikationstyp Artikel: Journalartikel
Dokumenttyp Wissenschaftlicher Artikel
Korrespondenzautor
Schlagwörter Endangered Species ; Gamification ; Genomics ; Pink Pigeon ; Public Engagement
ISSN (print) / ISBN 0733-3188
e-ISSN 1098-2361
Zeitschrift Zoo Biology
Verlag Wiley
Verlagsort New York, NY
Nichtpatentliteratur Publikationen
Begutachtungsstatus Peer reviewed
Institut(e) Helmholtz Artifical Intelligence Cooperation Unit (HAICU)
Helmholtz Pioneer Campus (HPC)
Förderungen E.J.M. was funded by East of Scotland Bioscience Doctoral Training Partnership (EASTBIO) funded by UKRI Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council (BBSRC) Grant Number BB/M010996/1. C.v.O. was funded by the Royal Society International Collabor