Conservation genetics of Houbara Bustard (Chlamydotis undulata undulata): population structure and its implications for the reinforcement of wild populations

Abstract

The major decline of Houbara Bustards-sensu lato-throughout their range has led to their classification as 'vulnerable' on the IUCN Red List. Within this context, a captive breeding program was established in Morocco to restock North African wild populations of Houbara Bustard (Chlamydotis undulata undulata). At present, founders originate from locations that are currently being reinforced through the addition of captive bred individuals. However, it is planned to restock others areas of the species' range. Before this could be considered, an accurate knowledge of the genetic structure of the wild recipient population is essential to delineate potential conservation units. We therefore sampled populations throughout most of the remaining range, and used several methods to evaluate their genetic differentiation by means of both mtDNA and microsatellite markers. Very little genetic differentiation was found for both genetic markers (U st ranged from -0.181 to 0.118 and F st ranged from -0.004 to 0.019).This suggests that C. u. undulata populations could be managed as a single Conservation Unit.

Patterns of genetic diversity and population structure of the threatened Houbara and Macqueen’s bustards as revealed by microsatellite markers

“…Their estimates of the mean H E , H O and F IS were 0.70, 0.64 and 0.08, respectively, for Moroccan populations. In the current study, we estimated H E , H O and F IS to be 0.70, 0.65 and 0.05, respectively, for the populations we sampled in Morocco, which were mostly similar to the estimates of Lesobre et al (2010).…”

“…Unfortunately, only few Houbara studies that used SSRs are available for comparison. Lesobre et al (2010) have studied the genetic characteristics of Cuu in North Africa using the same SSR loci. Their estimates of the mean H E , H O and F IS were 0.70, 0.64 and 0.08, respectively, for Moroccan populations.…”

“…According to Sangster et al (1999), Knox et al (2002) and Lesobre et al (2010), the Chlamydotis genus consists of two species C. undulata and C. macqueenii with C. undulata comprising two subspecies (Cuu and Cuf). Other authors, however, posit that the genus is monotypic and made up of three well-differentiated subpopulations [Cramp and Simmons, 1980;Pitra et al, 2002Pitra et al, , 2004Idaghdour et al, 2004;IUCN, 2010;Birdlife International (2010) taxonomic group].…”

“…Dawson et al (1999) while performing analysis on the CHD-Z gene, confirmed the absence of size difference products between two Houbara bustard populations from Morocco and the Canary Islands. Lesobre et al (2010) used both mtDNA and DNA microsatellites as described in Idaghdour et al (2004) and Chbel et al (2002), respectively, and did not find solid evidence of structuring within Cuu either. Pitra et al (2004) studied the macqueenii population history and showed weak structuring using only four microsatellite markers.…”

Modeling Absolute and Allometric Growth in Houbara Bustard (Chlamydotis undulata undulata) in Captivity

“…Since then there have been studies on the biology (Saint Jalme et al, 1994;Tieleman et al, 2002), captive breeding (Gélinaud et al, 1997;Hémon et al, 2000) diseases (Ostrowski et al, 1995;Bailey et al, 2008), ecology (van Heezik andOstrowski, 2001), behavior (Gaucher et al, 1996, van Heezik andSeddon, 1998), genetics (Chbel et al, 2002;Idaghdour et al, 2004;Lesobre et al, 2010) and phylogeny (Granjon 95 et al, 1994;Broders et al, 2003) of the Houbara. However, data on the entire growth characteristics of the Houbara is very scant.…”