Abstract:India is home to approximately 60 per cent of the world's remaining wild tigers, a species that has declined in the last few centuries to occupy less than 7 per cent of its former geographical range. While Indian tiger numbers have somewhat stabilized in recent years, they remain low and populations are highly fragmented. Therefore, the application of evidence-based demographic and genetic management to enhance the remaining populations is a priority. In this context, and using genetic data from historical and… Show more
“…S2 in the Supplement). Thirty variable sites were identified in the whole mitogenome excluding the control region (21 C/T and 9 A/G nucleotide substitutions), and there were 22 new variable sites (11 in WEFCOM and 11 in Ti2) when comparing our results to other studies (Luo et al 2004, Driscoll et al 2009, Zhang et al 2011, Kitpipit et al 2012, Mondol et al 2013, Sun et al 2015, Xue et al 2015) (see Table S4 in the Supplement). The WEFCOM haplotype carried 1 Panthera tigris altaica-specific single nucleotide polymorphism (SNP; 14711A) as described by Luo et al (2004), whereas Ti2 contained no subspecies-specific SNPs.…”
“…S2 in the Supplement). Thirty variable sites were identified in the whole mitogenome excluding the control region (21 C/T and 9 A/G nucleotide substitutions), and there were 22 new variable sites (11 in WEFCOM and 11 in Ti2) when comparing our results to other studies (Luo et al 2004, Driscoll et al 2009, Zhang et al 2011, Kitpipit et al 2012, Mondol et al 2013, Sun et al 2015, Xue et al 2015) (see Table S4 in the Supplement). The WEFCOM haplotype carried 1 Panthera tigris altaica-specific single nucleotide polymorphism (SNP; 14711A) as described by Luo et al (2004), whereas Ti2 contained no subspecies-specific SNPs.…”
“…)âfor example, through habitat loss and fragmentation (Mondol et al. ); hunting pressure (GonzĂĄlezâPorter et al. ); overfishing (Allendorf et al.…”
Humans have exploited the earth's metal resources for thousands of years leaving behind a legacy of toxic metal contamination and poor water quality. The southwest of England provides a well-defined example, with a rich history of metal mining dating to the Bronze Age. Mine water washout continues to negatively impact water quality across the region where brown trout (Salmo trutta L.) populations exist in both metal-impacted and relatively clean rivers. We used microsatellites to assess the genetic impact of mining practices on trout populations in this region. Our analyses demonstrated that metal-impacted trout populations have low genetic diversity and have experienced severe population declines. Metal-river trout populations are genetically distinct from clean-river populations, and also from one another, despite being geographically proximate. Using approximate Bayesian computation (ABC), we dated the origins of these genetic patterns to periods of intensive mining activity. The historical split of contemporary metal-impacted populations from clean-river fish dated to the Medieval period. Moreover, we observed two distinct genetic populations of trout within a single catchment and dated their divergence to the Industrial Revolution. Our investigation thus provides an evaluation of contemporary population genetics in showing how human-altered landscapes can change the genetic makeup of a species.
Anthropogenic habitat fragmentation of species that live in naturally patchy metapopulations such as mountaintops or sky islands experiences two levels of patchiness. Effects of such multilevel patchiness on species have rarely been examined. Metapopulation theory suggests that patchy habitats could have varied impacts on persistence, dependent on differential migration. It is not known whether montane endemic species, evolutionarily adapted to natural patchiness, are able to disperse between anthropogenic fragments at similar spatial scales as natural patches. We investigated historic and contemporary gene flow between natural and anthropogenic patches across the distribution range of a Western Ghats sky-island-endemic bird species complex. Data from 14 microsatellites for 218 individuals detected major genetic structuring by deep valleys, including one hitherto undescribed barrier. As expected, we found strong effects of historic genetic differentiation across natural patches, but not across anthropogenic fragments. Contrastingly, contemporary differentiation (D(PS)) was higher relative to historic differentiation (F(ST)) in anthropogenic fragments, despite the species' ability to historically traverse shallow valleys. Simulations of recent isolation resulted in high D(PS)/F(ST) values, confirming recent isolation in Western Ghats anthropogenic fragments and also suggesting that this ratio can be used to identifying recent fragmentation in the context of historic connectedness. We suggest that in this landscape, in addition to natural patchiness affecting population connectivity, anthropogenic fragmentation additionally impacts connectivity, making anthropogenic fragments akin to islands within natural islands of montane habitat, a pattern that may be recovered in other sky-island systems.
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