Puma Genomes from North and South America Inform Conservation

This study sequenced complete genomes of pumas from across the Americas to examine how range-wide demographic history shaped genetic load and diversity. The authors confirmed the deep divergence between North and South American populations and quantified runs of homozygosity and deleterious variation in small, isolated groups such as the Florida panther and an isolated population in California's Santa Ana Mountains. They showed how genetic rescue reduced homozygosity in Florida and warned of accumulating inbreeding in other fragmented populations. By placing puma conservation genetics on a whole-genome footing, the work refined estimates of how isolation erodes diversity and informed management of urban-bounded cougar populations.