New research suggests the giant panda has more diverse immune system and is better equipped for environmental changes than we previously thought.
There are only about 1,500 giant pandas left in the wild, they were added to the list of endangered species by the International Union for the Conservation of Nature in 1996. As of right now they only exist in about six Chinese mountain ranges, but are believed to have once hailed through "parts of Burma and northern Vietnam as well," LiveScience reported.
Environmental changes have reduced the bears that may have lived in those areas to nothing but a pile of fossils.
Researchers from the Zhejiang University in China analyzed samples of fecal matter, skin, and blood from 218 pandas from all six mountain habitats.
The team looked at the animals' histocompatibility complex (MHC), "the part of the genome that embodies parts of the immune system," LiveScience reported. The various giant panda populations are believed to adapt to have different MHCs.
If the MHCs are too similar, it could mean a lack of genetic diversity. When species are too genetically similar it elevates the danger of extinction because one biological threat could easily wipe out the entire population if they were all prone to it.
"The assumption is that a decrease in genetic variation and a lack of exchange between isolated populations increase the likelihood of extinction by reducing the population's ability to adapt to changing environments," the team wrote in a report, LiveScience reported.
The researchers found that the panda actually exhibited quite a bit of genetic diversity, even more than the "Bengal tiger ot Namibian cheetah," but less diverse then the brown bear.
This information could help researchers create more efficient breeding programs in order to grow the endangered pandas' populations and increase genetic diversity.
"If you need to capture 10 pandas for a captive breeding program, then you choose those 10 to encompass the most diversity," Paul Hohenlohe, a biologist at the University of Idaho who was not involved in the study, told LiveScience. "You can do that by getting them from multiple populations, or one population that has the most diversity."
