The genetic consequences of captive breeding, environmental change and human exploitation in the endangered peninsular pronghorn

Klimova, Anastasia; Gutiérrez-Rivera, Jesus Neftalí; Sánchez-Sotomayor, Victor; Hoffman, Joseph Ivan ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-5895-8949. 2022 The genetic consequences of captive breeding, environmental change and human exploitation in the endangered peninsular pronghorn. Scientific Reports, 12 (1), 11253. 12, pp. 10.1038/s41598-022-14468-4

Before downloading, please read NORA policies.

Preview

Text
This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article's Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article's Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder
s41598-022-14468-4.pdf - Published Version
Available under License Creative Commons Attribution 4.0.
Download (1MB) | Preview

Official URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/s41598-022-14468-4

Abstract/Summary

Endangered species with small population sizes are susceptible to genetic erosion, which can be detrimental to long-term persistence. Consequently, monitoring and mitigating the loss of genetic diversity are essential for conservation. The Peninsular pronghorn (Antilocapra americana peninsularis) is an endangered pronghorn subspecies that is almost entirely held in captivity. Captive breeding has increased the number of pronghorns from 25 founders in 1997 to around 700 individuals today, but it is unclear how the genetic diversity of the captive herd may have changed over time. We therefore generated and analysed data for 16 microsatellites spanning 2009–2021. We detected a decline in heterozygosity and an increase in the proportion of inbred individuals over time. However, these trends appear to have been partially mitigated by a genetically informed breeding management attempt that was implemented in 2018. We also reconstructed the recent demographic history of the Peninsular pronghorn, revealing two sequential population declines putatively linked to the desertification of the Baja California peninsula around 6000 years ago, and hunting and habitat loss around 500 years ago, respectively. Our results provide insights into the genetic diversity of an endangered antelope and indicate the potential for genetically informed management to have positive conservation outcomes.

Item Type:	Publication - Article
Digital Object Identifier (DOI):	10.1038/s41598-022-14468-4
ISSN:	2045-2322
Additional Keywords:	Conservation biology, Genetic variation, inbreeding
Date made live:	13 Jul 2022 12:56 +0 (UTC)
URI:	https://nora.nerc.ac.uk/id/eprint/532905

Item Type:

Publication - Article

Digital Object Identifier (DOI):

10.1038/s41598-022-14468-4

ISSN:

2045-2322

Additional Keywords:

Conservation biology, Genetic variation, inbreeding

Date made live:

13 Jul 2022 12:56 +0 (UTC)

URI:

https://nora.nerc.ac.uk/id/eprint/532905