Conservation Genetics or Genomics?

For all of you who, like me, are new to this field, a brief description of both conservation genetics and genomics would come in handy. According to Ouborg et al. (2010), conservation genetics is characterized by assessing relationships between population size and neutral sequence variation. But, what is neutral sequence variation? Well, there is a theory called The Neutral Theory of Molecular Evolution; it will help us understand what neutral variation is.

According to The Neutral Theory of Molecular Evolution, the vast Majority of evolutionary changes at the molecular level are caused by random drift of selectively neutral mutants which do not affect fitness, therefore referred to as neutral. [1]

On the other hand, conservation genomics assesses relationships between population size and both neutral and selectively important variation, both in terms of sequence variation and gene expression variation, and thereby incorporates potential effects of selection. Conservation genomics also incorporates the influence of environmental conditions on sequence variation (via selection) and on gene expression variation. [2] 

[2]

References:

[1] Kimura, M (1983). The neutral theory of molecular evolution. Cambridge (page xi)

[2] Ouborg NJ, Pertoldi C, Loeschcke V, Bijlsma R, Hedrick PW (2010). Conservation genetics in transition to conservation genomics. Trends Genet 26: 177-187. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.tig.2010.01.001