40年前的红狼基因被找到--有望复活该濒危物种（下）

But why are these called “ghost” alleles?

但为什么这些被称为“幽灵”等位基因呢?

So the ghost part is the red wolves are gone, and we presumed they took all of their genes with them.

“幽灵”部分代表消失的红狼，我们推测它们带走了所有的基因。

But what we also have to remember is when a population is dying out, it might find the best mate is the next closest related species.

但我们还必须记住的是，当一个种群濒临灭绝时，这个种群可能会找亲缘关系最近的物种作为最佳伴侣。

So a red wolf and a coyote can have offspring.

一只红狼和一只郊狼可以繁育后代。

Maybe the red wolf dies, because that's what's been happening for red wolves, but all of those genes that it just passed on to its coyote hybrid offspring, now get to circulate and we've rediscovered those.

也许红狼会死掉，因为这就是发生在红狼身上的事情，但所有这些红狼遗传给与其杂交的郊狼的后代的基因，如今开始流传，我们重新发现了它们。

Bridgett vonHoldt, who you just heard, is a collaborator working with Brzeski.

布里奇特·冯·霍尔德，你们刚刚听过，是克里斯汀的合作对象。

Together, they found that some coyote populations in Louisiana and Texas who were protected from hunting still retain huge amounts of red wolf genes—some individuals are almost 60% red wolf.

她们共同发现，路易斯安那州和德克萨斯州的一些受到保护、免受捕猎的郊狼种群仍然保留着大量的红狼基因--有些郊狼个体几乎保留了60%的红狼基因。

As red wolves are released back into the wild, breeding with these coyotes could help the critically endangered species regain some of its genetic diversity.

当这些红狼被放归野外时，与这些郊狼交配可以帮助这种极度濒危的物种恢复一些基因多样性。

That’s almost like going back in time and un-doing the genetic bottleneck from 1980—making the new red wolf population more genetically diverse.

这几乎就像时光倒流，解除了1980年的基因瓶颈——让新的红狼种群在基因上更加多样化。

This would be kind of the opposite direction, taking the small isolated, you know, inbred population from the captive breeding program that still has red wolf genes that are so critical, and put them into a wild landscape with new genetic variation that they haven't seen for 50 years or more.

这将是一个相反的方向，从圈养繁殖项目中(这个项目中仍然保留着非常重要的红狼基因)取出较小的、封闭的、可以近亲繁殖的种群，并将它们放入一个有新的基因变异(这种变异已经有50年或更长时间没有看到过)的野生环境中。

And all of a sudden, hopefully, this is like a super mix of genetic health and sort of a rebound that these animals can be wild and be themselves again.

突然之间，希望这就像是基因遗传状况和某种反向基因遗传的超级组合，这些动物可以回到野外，重新做回自己。

The next steps will include how to release red wolves in a way that takes advantage of the ghost alleles hiding in coyote populations.

下一步将包括如何利用隐藏在郊狼种群中的“幽灵”等位基因放归红狼。

Like with other wolf releasing efforts there might be some push back.

就像其他放归狼群的努力一样，可能会有一些阻力。

There will be controversy, there will be people who aren't happy.

会有争议，会有人不高兴。

But there are people that are and are incredibly supportive.

但是有些人非常支持我。

And I think also at the end of the day, there's a philosophy that we created this problem, we're responsible for fixing it.

归根结底，我认为应该持有一种理念--是我们制造了这个问题，我们有责任解决它。

For Scientific American’s 60-Second Science, I’m Fionna Samuels.

谢谢大家收听科学美国人——60秒科学。我是费欧娜·塞缪尔。