Abstract
The importance of understanding population genetics in planning effective management of small populations has been repeatedly emphasized. Inbreeding, loss of variation through drift, genetic differentiation among populations and identification of taxa have received particular attention. In this paper, I discuss the relative importance of these issues in a hierarchical framework, and suggest some means of resolving the debate surrounding them. Small island populations of plants and animals around New Zealand present special opportunities for examining the bottleneck effects of both recent and prolonged inbreeding. In addition to island distributions, the age and isolation of New Zealand and its associated fauna and flora have permitted an impressive radiation in some groups. Perpetual representation of this phylogenetic biodiversity is clearly an important goal of conservation, but the systematics of many groups is poorly known. Comparative molecular methods now allow us to quantify this diversity from the...
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