I FIND THIS VERY INTERESTING!

Rare Brown and White Panda Could be the Result of Inbreeding

http://www.treehugger.com/files/2010/01/rare-brown-and-white-panda-could-be-the-result-of-inbreeding.php

Giant pandas are rare in the wild—WWF estimates the population is around 1,600—but seeing a giant panda with brown fur instead of black is nearly unheard of. When a brown and white panda cub was discovered in China in November, it became the seventh ever observed.While it is not certain what causes the variation, new research suggests that it might be the result of inbreeding which would have serious implications for the viability of the giant panda population in the wild.

"It's time we had a debate about what is causing this because it could be telling us something very important," Tiejun Wang, a spatial ecologist at the University of Twente in Enschede, the Netherlands, explained.

Based on historical and anecdotal observations, Wang believes that the variation may be caused by a double recessive gene. If this is the case, both the mother and father of a brown-furred cub would have to posses the recessive trait.This would explain why the variation is so rare. It would also suggest that its appearance is indicative of inbreeding in the population. Wang explained:The habitat in the Qinling Mountains is seriously fragmented and the population density is very high...the brown pandas could be an indication of local inbreeding.Such inbreeding is a concern for conservationists because it leads to a population that relies on the same set of adaptations to overcome threats, increasing the probability of extinction.

Studies of the genome, too, have shown that little inbreeding has occurred among pandas. At this point, researchers said, only a careful study of gene sequences and morphology can determine whether the source of the brown panda variation is in the air, the soil, or the shrinking genetic diversity of the giant pandas.