Temporal genetic dynamics of reintroduced and translocated populations of the endangered golden lion tamarin (Leontopithecus rosalia)

Abstract

time and that these management strategies would affect the resulting population genetic structure. We found trends indicating that the effective population size at the translocation site increased while that at the reintroduction sites diminished over time. The inbreeding coefficient of the translocated population diminished over time (from 0.38 to 0.03) and was much lower than that of the native (0.29) and reintroduced (0.13) recent populations. We observed a greater genetic admixture among the reintroduced sites on the historic sampling, as well as a strong genetic structure at the translocation site. In the recent sampling, the population structuring became more site-related suggesting low or inconsistent gene flow between sampling sites. This research highlights how conservation management decisions have an important influence on the genetic outcome of translocations and reintroductions. Future conservation planning should consider population genetic monitoring before and after management measures and maintain population connectivity thereafter to avoid the negative effects of a population size reduction.

Population Genetic Structure of an Endangered Endemic Primate (Leontopithecus chrysomelas) in a Highly Fragmented Atlantic Coastal Rain Forest

“…The average number of alleles was relatively high for GHLTs in the wild, but this might be (partially) due to differences in sample sizes (for which this parameter is relatively sensitive). Moreover, the average number of alleles per subpopulation of GHLTs was similar to the subpopulation variation observed for L. rosalia -2.0 ± 0.4-3.8 ± 0.3 [Grativol et al, 2001] and 2.9 ± 0.7-5.0 ± 1.8 [Moraes et al, 2017]. Although our sampling and laboratory procedures follow previous studies using hair samples captured from lion tamarins [Orefice, 2015;Ayala-Burba- Moraes et al, 2017], these results may also be influenced by genotyping error.…”

“…Genetic studies with lion tamarins differ in the number of samples, populations and microsatellite loci, and in the type (skin, blood or hair) and origin (wild life or captivity) of samples, making it difficult to compare them. Considering these differences, the mean expected heterozygosity for GHLT was similar to that observed for Leontopithecus rosalia [Grativol et al, 2001;Moraes et al, 2017] and not much higher than the values reported for Leontopithecus caissara [Martins and Galetti, 2011;Martins et al, 2012] and L. chrysopygus [Ayala-Burbano et al, 2017]. The average number of alleles was relatively high for GHLTs in the wild, but this might be (partially) due to differences in sample sizes (for which this parameter is relatively sensitive).…”

“…This is also a good indication that relatedness is not an issue to estimate the genetic indices [as in Peterman et al, 2016;Moraes et al, 2017]. Deviation from mutationdrift equilibrium in REBIO Una (having a large enough sample size, also for the unrelated set) was also tested with BOTTLENECK 1.2.02 (10,000 replications) [Piry et al, 1999].…”

“…In addition, these similar genetic diversities among captive populations and our results were found even using different types of samples: skin (n = 29, loci = 9, N a = 3.67, H e = 0.59 [Galbusera and Gillemot, 2008]), blood (n = 55, loci = 16, N a = 5.1, H e = 0.65) and hair (n = 49, loci = 16, N a = 4.6, H e = 0.55) [Orefice, 2015]. The importance of genetically diverse captive populations for the conservation of lion tamarin species with markedly smaller wild populations has also been documented [Ayala-Burbano et al, 2017;Moraes et al, 2017]. In the case of L. rosalia, the captive population contributed greatly to the wild population by means of a reintroduction programme [Kierulff et al, 2012;Moraes et al, 2017].…”

“…Limited connectivity of forest habitat in a landscape comprising forest and non-forest can hence constrain lion tamarin dispersal . Given the high degree of fragmentation in the Atlantic Coastal Rain Forest [Ribeiro et al, 2009], we expect populations of this endangered species to have limited gene flow and thus a relatively high degree of genetic structure and low retention of within-population genetic diversity over time [Moraes et al, 2017].…”