The greater flamingo Phoenicopterus roseus is a long‐lived colonial waterbird species, characterized by a large range encompassing three continents, a very limited number of breeding sites, and high dispersal abilities. We investigated both the phylogeographic history and the contemporary extent of genetic differentiation between eight different Mediterranean breeding colonies of greater flamingos sampled between 1995 and 2009, using both mitochondrial DNA and microsatellite markers. We found no significant differences in allelic richness or private allelic richness in relation to colony size. Overall, no genetic population differentiation was detected using either mitochondrial or microsatellite markers. F‐statistics and Bayesian clustering methods did not support any significant genetic structure. Analysis of both mitochondrial DNA and microsatellites indicated that populations have undergone a bottleneck followed by rapid growth and expansion. The average time since expansion was estimated to be 696 421 yr (90% CI: 526 316–1 131 579 yr). We discuss our results in relation to both the possible historical events accounting for the present genetic structure and relevance to conservation and management of the species.
This article documents the addition of 139 microsatellite marker loci and 90 pairs of singlenucleotide polymorphism sequencing primers to the Molecular Ecology Resources Database. Loci were developed for the following species: Aglaoctenus lagotis, Costus pulverulentus, Costus scaber, Culex pipiens, Dascyllus marginatus, Lupinus nanus Benth, Phloeomyzus passerini, Podarcis muralis, Rhododendron rubropilosum Hayata var. taiwanalpinum and Zoarces viviparus. These loci were cross-tested on the following species: Culex quinquefasciatus, Rhododendron pseudochrysanthum Hay. ssp. morii (Hay.) Yamazaki and R. pseudochrysanthum Hayata. This article also documents the addition of 48 sequencing primer pairs and 90 allele-specific primers for Engraulis encrasicolus. et al.
Body condition is an important determinant of fitness in many natural populations. However, as for many fitness traits, the underlying genes that regulate body condition remain elusive. The dopamine receptor D4 gene (DRD4) is a promising candidate as dopamine is known to play an important role in the regulation of food intake and the metabolism of both glucose and lipids in vertebrates. In this study, we take advantage of a large data set of greater flamingos, Phoenicopterus roseus, to test whether DRD4 polymorphism predicts early body condition (EBC) while controlling for whole-genome effects of inbreeding and outbreeding using microsatellite multilocus heterozygosity (MLH). We typed 670 of these individuals for exon 3 of the homologue of the human DRD4 gene and 10 microsatellite markers. When controlling for the effects of yearly environmental variations and differences between sexes, we found strong evidence of an association between exon 3 DRD4 polymorphisms and EBC, with 2.2-2.3% of the variation being explained by DRD4 polymorphism, whereas there was only weak evidence that MLH predicts EBC. Because EBC is most likely a polygenic trait, this is a considerable amount of variation explained by a single gene. This is to our knowledge, the first study to show an association between exon 3 DRD4 polymorphism and body condition in non-human animals. We anticipate that the DRD4 gene as well as other genes coding for neurotransmitters and their receptors may play an important role in explaining variation in traits that affect fitness.
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