Response to Comment on Individual heterozygosity predicts translocation success in threatened desert tortoises

Hansson et al. argue that our main finding could provide an overly simplistic metric for maximizing genetic rescue. They agree that translocating the most genetically diverse individuals led to a large increase in translocated tortoise survival, but recommend instead moving individuals that have low genetic load and the greatest representation of metapopulation diversity. Their recommendation is based on specific model assumptions and fitness effects that are often unknown and are not generalizable to many endangered species applications.

Automated summary

The main finding suggests that genetic rescue should not solely focus on genetic diversity, but also consider the genetic load and representation of population diversity in translocated individuals. However, these recommendations are based on specific model assumptions and fitness effects, which may not be applicable to all endangered species.