Red deer (n = 149) from eight geographical locations, including the endangered endemic populations from the Tyrrhenian islands (Sardinia and Corsica), were analysed at eight polymorphic microsatellite loci. Two questions were addressed: (1) Is there a founder eVect in the Corsican population, which was reintroduced to the island using Sardinian deer after the species' extinction on Corsica? (2) What is the origin of the Tyrrhenian or Corsican red deer (Cervus elaphus corsicanus)? Our results showed signs of a founder eVect for the red deer on Corsica in that these deer showed diVerentiation from the Sardinian population as measured by F ST values, assignment tests (with and without a priori deWnition of populations) and individual-based dendrograms. Genetic variability, however, did not diVer signiWcantly between the two populations. With respect to the phylogeography of C. e. corsicanus we found that both deer from NorthAfrica and Mesola on the Italian mainland were genetically close to the Corsican red deer, but phylogenetic trees based on genetic distances were only poorly supported statistically. Among all populations studied the Mesola red deer showed the lowest distance values from Corsican red deer and yielded allele frequencies that were more similar to those of C. e. corsicanus than were those of North-African red deer. These results are in line with recent palaeontological and archaeozoological Wndings which suggest that the Corsican red deer is derived from small Italian red deer introduced from the mainland to

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Barbary red deer Cervus elaphus barbarus from three areas in Tunisia (n = 30) were analysed for genetic variability at 13 microsatellite loci and 680 bp of the mitochondrial control region. Barbary red deer, the only African deer taxon, are presently confined to a small area along the Tunisian-Algerian border and underwent a severe bottleneck in the middle of the 20th century with, on the Tunisian side, possibly only seven animals left. The genetic data showed signs of inbreeding and reflected the bottleneck event. Variability was on the lower end of the range previously reported for red deer (number of haplotypes= two, observed and expected heterozygosity 0.46 and 0.78, respectively) but not as low as might have been feared in view of the population's demographic history. The three sampling sites -among them the reserve at El Feidja from which, apart from Algerian immigrants, all extant Tunisian red deer originate -did not show any sign of genetic differentiation. The Tunisian red deer can thus probably be considered a single, genetically homogeneous population. Implications for management and conservation of the genetic findings are discussed.

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