Inbreeding or chlamydia? It’s an impossible situation. But it’s a situation that koalas are facing in the suburbs of Sydney, Australia, where low levels of genetic diversity are threatening one of the only chlamydia-free populations of koalas that’s left.
According to a new analysis in Conservation Genetics, the koalas in the southwestern suburbs of Sydney are some of the only koalas in New South Wales that are still free of chlamydia, a contagious disease that’s devastated the other koala populations in the state (and in Australia as a whole). But the koalas in Sydney still aren’t safe, thanks to their low levels of genetic diversity.
“Without diversity, endangered species risk succumbing to disease outbreaks and environmental threats,” said Elspeth McLennan, one of the authors of the analysis and a researcher at the University of Sydney’s School of Environmental and Life Sciences, according to a press release.
