Because of the constraints of captivity, captive populations are generally closed to the introduction of unrelated individuals and may eventually experience inbreeding depression and its associated problems. As a means of increasing genetic diversity in established social gropus of rhesus monkeys at the California Primate Research Center, 36 infants were used as subjects in a cross-fostering experiment in which 27 infants (75%) were successfully integrated into non-natal groups by fostering them onto unrelated females. These results have important practical implications for maintaining self-sustaining populations of captive rhesus monkeys and may eventually be extended to other captive species. Cross-fostering infants between captive social populations may be an important means of minimizing the higher mortality and morbidity and reduced fertility effects associated with inbreeding depression. Furthermore, this procedure causes a minimum of social disruption and reduces the chances that older animals introduced into new groups will be traumatized.
Keywords: foster mother; inbreeding depression; multiparous.
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