Patterns of microsatellite polymorphism in the range‐restricted bonobo (Pan paniscus): considerations for interspecific comparison with chimpanzees (P. troglodytes)

Abstract

The endangered great ape, Pan paniscus (bonobo) has the smallest range of the African apes. Virtually nothing is known about the genetic diversity or genetic structure of this species, while substantial amounts of polymorphism have been reported for the bonobo's widespread congener, the chimpanzee (P. troglodytes). Given its restricted range, what is the extent of genetic variation in the bonobo relative to the chimpanzee, and is the bonobo genetically depauperate? To investigate patterns of genetic polymorphism, bonobos of wild origin were genotyped for 28 microsatellite loci. The mean number of alleles per locus (5.2) and the mean observed heterozygosity (0.52) in bonobos were similar to variation observed in a wild chimpanzee community (P. t. schweinfurthii). The rarer bonobo is not genetically depauperate and may have genetic diversity comparable to the eastern chimpanzee subspecies. Bonobos have approximately 55% of the allelic diversity and 66% of the observed heterozygosity exhibited by all three chimpanzee subspecies sampled across equatorial Africa. Resampling techniques were used to quantify the effects of sample size differences and number and choice of loci between bonobos and chimpanzees. The examination of these variables underscores their importance in accurately interpreting interspecific comparisons of diversity estimates.

Genetic Divergence of Orangutan Subspecies (Pongo pygmaeus)

“…To assess differences in mean A and mean Ho between the two orangutans, we used oneway analysis of variance (ANOVA; Sokal and Rohlf 1995). Our results showed no significant difference between the two orangutan taxa for either allelic diversity (ANOVA: F ‫ס‬ 0.017, P > 0.05) or heterozygosity diversity (ANOVA: F ‫ס‬ 0.237, P > 0.05), whereas the results of Reinartz et al (2000) for chimpanzee/bonobo comparison showed significant difference at both (ANOVA for allelic diversity: F ‫ס‬ 13.259, P ‫ס‬ 0.003; for heterozygosity diversity: F ‫ס‬ 10.273, P ‫ס‬ 0.003).…”

“…Analyses of allelic and heterozygosity diversity of the two orangutan taxa showed no significant differences between them. While using the same analyses, Reinartz et al (2000) found differences between chimpanzees and bonobos to be significant for both allelic and heterozygosity diversity. Even though other microsatellite loci than ours were studied, their results still provided comparable information.…”

“…However, a preliminary test showed that 16s rRNA did not evolve at a constant rate in the two orangutan subspecies, so we did not focus our analysis on this region but rather on ND5. Other authors have contributed microsatellite studies of chimpanzees and bonobos (Morin 1992;Morin et al 1994; Reinartz et al 2000). Some of their data and/or results were utilized here for comparison (see Table 1).…”

Male Dominance Rank, Female Mate Choice and Male Mating and Reproductive Success in Captive Chimpanzees

“…We carried out PCR amplifications in a total volume of 50 µl consisting of 3-8 µl of DNA template, 1xTaq buffer (20 mM Tris-HCl pH 8.0, 100 mM KCl, 1.5 mM Mg 2+ ), 0.2 mM dNTPs, 50 pmol each primer (forward primers were fluorescently labelled) and 2.5 U Taq polimerase (Eppendorf). We used primers of 9 microsatellite loci originally described for humans and successfully applied on chimpanzees (Reinartz et al, 2000;Vigilant et al, 2001). Six loci consisted of tetranucleotide repeats (D2S1329, D11S2002, D12S66, D2S1326, D5S1470, D7S817) and 3 loci (FABP, Pla2a1, D9S910) consisted of trinucleotide repeats.…”

Single‐copy nuclear DNA sequences obtained from noninvasively collected primate feces

“…This has been a particular problem for wild populations, many of which are endangered. Since the advent of the polymerase chain reaction (PCR), noninvasive sampling techniques for primate DNA are being used increasingly for studies of genetic structure, social structure, parentage analysis, and population censuses [Morin et al, 1994;Constable et al, 1995;Gerloff et al, 1995;van der Kuyl & Dekker, 1996;Gagneux et al, 1997b, Gerloff et al, 1999Immel et al, 1999;Launhardt et al, 1998;Reinartz et al, 2000;Smith et al, 2000;Oka & Takenaka, 2001;Constable et al, 2001]. Feces have been used as a source of mitochondrial DNA for sequencing, and nuclear DNA for microsatellite genotyping.…”