Genetic perspectives on “Lion Conservation Units” in Eastern and Southern Africa

Dubach, Jean; Briggs, Michael B.; White, Paula A.; Ament, B. A.; Patterson, Bruce D.

doi:10.1007/s10592-013-0453-3

Cited by 43 publications

(66 citation statements)

References 42 publications

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“…The UA group is comprised of individuals sampled within local groups that could not be assigned to a particular tier due to admixture. Other range-wide studies of lions have shown a similar localized structure pattern with individuals assigned to sampling populations with evidence of isolation-by-distance (40,41).…”

Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 56%

Spatiotemporal Genetic Diversity of Lions

Curry

Davis

Bertola

et al. 2020

Preprint

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The Scramble for Africa in the late 1800s marked the beginning of increased human population growth in Africa. Here, we determined the genetic architecture of both historical and modern lions to identify changes in genetic diversity that occurred during this period of landscape and anthropogenic change. We surveyed microsatellite and mitochondrial genetic variation from 143 high-quality museum specimens of known provenance and combined them with data from recently published nuclear and mitochondrial studies. Analysis of variation at 9 microsatellites and 280 polymorphic mitogenome SNPs indicate the presence of male-mediated gene flow and recent isolation of local subpopulations, likely due to habitat fragmentation. Nuclear markers showed a significant decrease in genetic diversity from the historical (HE=0.833) to the modern (HE=0.796) populations, while mitochondrial genetic diversity was maintained (Hd=0.98 for both). While the historical population appears to have been panmictic based on nDNA data, hierarchical structure analysis identified four tiers of fine structure in modern populations, able to detect most sampling locations. Mitochondrial analyses identified 4 clusters: Southern, Mixed, Eastern, and Western; and were consistent between modern and historically sampled haplotypes. Within the last century, habitat fragmentation caused lion subpopulations to become more isolated as human expansion changed the African landscape. This resulted in an increase in finescale nuclear genetic structure and loss of genetic diversity as subpopulations became more differentiated, while mitochondrial structure and diversity was maintained over time.

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Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 56%

Spatiotemporal Genetic Diversity of Lions

Curry

Davis

Bertola

et al. 2020

Preprint

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“…We recommend urgent revision of lion taxonomy by the Cat Classification Task Force of the IUCN/SSC Cat Specialist Group [53]. Recognition of a West-Central African sub-species is supported by recent findings establishing the principal division of extant lions within Africa, and would correctly recognize the genetic uniqueness of West African populations [8], [9]. Irrespective of taxonomic status, we recommend listing the lion as critically endangered in West Africa.…”

Section: Conclusion and Recommendationsmentioning

confidence: 99%

The Lion in West Africa Is Critically Endangered

et al. 2014

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The African lion has declined to <35,000 individuals occupying 25% of its historic range. The situation is most critical for the geographically isolated populations in West Africa, where the species is considered regionally endangered. Elevating their conservation significance, recent molecular studies establish the genetic distinctiveness of West and Central African lions from other extant African populations. Interventions to save West African lions are urgently required. However formulating effective conservation strategies has been hampered by a lack of data on the species' current distribution, status, and potential management deficiencies of protected areas (PAs) harboring lions. Our study synthesized available expert opinion and field data to close this knowledge gap, and formulate recommendations for the conservation of West African lions. We undertook lion surveys in 13 large (>500 km2) PAs and compiled evidence of lion presence/absence for a further eight PAs. All PAs were situated within Lion Conservation Units, geographical units designated as priority lion areas by wildlife experts at a regional lion conservation workshop in 2005. Lions were confirmed in only 4 PAs, and our results suggest that only 406 (273–605) lions remain in West Africa, representing <250 mature individuals. Confirmed lion range is estimated at 49,000 km2, or 1.1% of historical range in West Africa. PAs retaining lions were larger than PAs without lions and had significantly higher management budgets. We encourage revision of lion taxonomy, to recognize the genetic distinctiveness of West African lions and highlight their potentially unique conservation value. Further, we call for listing of the lion as critically endangered in West Africa, under criterion C2a(ii) for populations with <250 mature individuals. Finally, considering the relative poverty of lion range states in West Africa, we call for urgent mobilization of investment from the international community to assist range states to increase management effectiveness of PAs retaining lions.

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“…Genetic markers have played a key role in studying the biogeography, history, and movement of lions for the past 50 years (see, for example [2,[5][6][7][8][9][10]). However, studies have been mostly limited to microsatellites with limited use of nuclear and mitochondrial sequence data (e.g., [11][12][13][14][15][16][17]). More recently, reduced representation sequencing has enabled genomic genotyping using the domestic cat or tiger as a reference [18].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Long live the king: chromosome-level assembly of the lion (Panthera leo) using linked-read, Hi-C, and long-read data

et al. 2020

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Background: The lion (Panthera leo) is one of the most popular and iconic feline species on the planet, yet in spite of its popularity, the last century has seen massive declines for lion populations worldwide. Genomic resources for endangered species represent an important way forward for the field of conservation, enabling high-resolution studies of demography, disease, and population dynamics. Here, we present a chromosome-level assembly from a captive African lion from the Exotic Feline Rescue Center (Center Point, IN) as a resource for current and subsequent genetic work of the sole social species of the Panthera clade. Results: Our assembly is composed of 10x Genomics Chromium data, Dovetail Hi-C, and Oxford Nanopore longread data. Synteny is highly conserved between the lion, other Panthera genomes, and the domestic cat. We find variability in the length of runs of homozygosity across lion genomes, indicating contrasting histories of recent and possibly intense inbreeding and bottleneck events. Demographic analyses reveal similar ancient histories across all individuals during the Pleistocene except the Asiatic lion, which shows a more rapid decline in population size. We show a substantial influence on the reference genome choice in the inference of demographic history and heterozygosity. Conclusions:We demonstrate that the choice of reference genome is important when comparing heterozygosity estimates across species and those inferred from different references should not be compared to each other. In addition, estimates of heterozygosity or the amount or length of runs of homozygosity should not be taken as reflective of a species, as these can differ substantially among individuals. This high-quality genome will greatly aid in the continuing research and conservation efforts for the lion, which is rapidly moving towards becoming a species in danger of extinction.

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Genetic perspectives on “Lion Conservation Units” in Eastern and Southern Africa

Cited by 43 publications

References 42 publications

Spatiotemporal Genetic Diversity of Lions

Spatiotemporal Genetic Diversity of Lions

The Lion in West Africa Is Critically Endangered

Long live the king: chromosome-level assembly of the lion (Panthera leo) using linked-read, Hi-C, and long-read data

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