Reproductive Success in Reestablished versus Natural Populations of a Threatened Grassland Daisy (Rutidosis leptorrhynchoides)

Abstract: Populations of the endangered Rutidosis leptorrhynchoides (Asteraceae) have been reestablished in conservation reserves to reduce their risk of extinction in the wild. The reproductive success (number of seeds per inflorescence, percent seed set, germinability) of five small reestablished populations (at 5–10 years after establishment) was compared to that of two large natural remnant populations from which they were derived. Initial growth rates under glasshouse conditions were compared for seedlings derived from seed from remnant and reestablished populations. Seed set per inflorescence in all five reestablished populations was equal to or greater than seed set in remnant population plants. The resulting seed was as germinable, and in some cases more germinable, than seed derived from remnant populations; the seedlings then grew as large or larger than remnant population seedlings grown under glasshouse conditions. Fitness reductions in small reestablished populations of R. leptorrhynchoides are not evident at the reproductive stage. Hence, these populations have some potential to maintain natural regeneration processes and might therefore positively contribute to the conservation of this species.     

Genetic Structure of Endangered Clapper Rail (Rallus longirostris) Populations in Southern California

We assessed the genetic structure of two subspecies of endangered Clapper Rails ( Rallus longirostris ) in Southern California using DNA fingerprinting to uncover variation in minisatellite DNA. Minisatellite DNA variation in the Salton Sea population of the R. l. yumanensis subspecies was at a level typical of outbred avian species (average proportion of fragments shared, or S, was 0.33). Variation was extremely low (S from 0.63 to 0.77), however, within four coastal, salt-marsh populations of the subspecies R. l. levipes located along a transect extending about 260 km northwest from the Mexican border. Between-population similarity (S_ij) was also high for the four levipes populations, although individuals of the small, isolated population at Mugu Lagoon consistently clustered separately in phenograms constructed using neighbor-joining or other algorithms. Individuals of yumanensis always clustered as a sister group to all levipes individuals. The minisatellite data were contrasted with the extremely low mtDNA and RAPD variation we found in both subspecies. We propose that variation in these less-mutable markers was lost in a bottleneck that occurred at least 1000 years ago, thus allowing sufficient time for recovery of variation in the rapidly mutating (μ≈} 0.001/gamete/generation) minisatellites (t = 1/μ, or 1000 generations). A second, more-recent bottleneck, or series of bottlenecks within a metapopulation structure, likely resulted in the depauparate variation seen in levipes today. We suggest that translocations from large to small levipes populations could restore important genetic variation to the small populations and would not compromise genetic boundaries.     

Conservation of Fragmented Populations

In this paper we argue that landscape spatial structure is of central importance in understanding the effects of fragmentation on population survival. Landscape spatial structure is the spatial relationships among habitat patches and the matrix in which they are embedded. Many general models of subdivided populations make the assumptions that (1) all habitat patches are equivalent in size and quality and (2) all local populations (in the patches) are equally accessible by dispersers. Models that gloss over spatial details of landscape structure can be useful for theoretical developments but will almost always be misleading when applied to real-world conservation problems. We show that local extinctions of fragmented populations are common. From this it follows that recolonization of local extinctions is critical for regional survival of fragmented populations. The probability of recolonization depends on (1) spatial relationships among landscape elements used by the population, including habitat patches for breeding and elements of the inter-patch matrix through which dispersers move, (2) dispersal characteristics of the organism of interest, and (3) temporal changes in the landscape structure. For endangered species, which are typically restricted in their dispersal range and in the kinds of habitat through which they can disperse, these factors are of primary importance and must be explicitly considered in management decisions.     

Post-Perturbation Genetic Changes in Populations of Endangered Virgin River Chubs

A 34-kilometer reach of the Virgin River, Utah-Arizona-Nevada, was poisoned with rotenone in an attempt to eradicate non-native red shiners ( Cyprinella lutrensis ), a species implicated in the decline of native fish populations in the American West. An error in detoxification resulted in lethal concentrations of piscicide passing through an additional 50 kilometers of stream. We used allozyme electrophoresis to analyze genetic variation among pre- and post-poison samples of endangered Virgin River chubs ( Gila seminuda ). Pre-poison samples indicated a single panmictic population in the river. In contrast, fish subsequently produced through natural recruitment in poisoned reaches exhibited deviations from the original pattern of genetic variation. A genetic bottleneck caused by severe reduction in the number of spawning adults was indicated. The altered pattern persisted 2.5 years post-poisoning, indicating unexpectedly slow recolonization from the unpoisoned reach upstream. Genetic variation among hatchery-produced young was similarly unrepresentative of the original pattern because of the small number of brood fish used in propagation. Because of their small numbers and/or restricted distribution, endangered species are particularly vulnerable to natural or anthropogenic catastrophes. Assessment of the genetic impact of such events is essential but requires that baseline data are available.     

Predicting the Deleterious Effects of Mutation Load in Fragmented Populations

Abstract:  Human-induced habitat fragmentation constitutes a major threat to biodiversity. Both genetic and demographic factors combine to drive small and isolated populations into extinction vortices. Nevertheless, the deleterious effects of inbreeding and drift load may depend on population structure, migration patterns, and mating systems and are difficult to predict in the absence of crossing experiments. We performed stochastic individual-based simulations aimed at predicting the effects of deleterious mutations on population fitness (offspring viability and median time to extinction) under a variety of settings (landscape configurations, migration models, and mating systems) on the basis of easy-to-collect demographic and genetic information. Pooling all simulations, a large part (70%) of variance in offspring viability was explained by a combination of genetic structure ( F_ST ) and within-deme heterozygosity ( H_S ). A similar part of variance in median time to extinction was explained by a combination of local population size ( N ) and heterozygosity ( H_S ). In both cases the predictive power increased above 80% when information on mating systems was available. These results provide robust predictive models to evaluate the viability prospects of fragmented populations.     

Modeling Dynamics of Habitat-Interior Bird Populations in Fragmented Landscapes

Abstract: A stochastic computer model was used to examine the effects of varying degrees of habitat fragmentation on the dynamics of a hypothetical population of forest-interior bid. The primary demographic parameter that influenced the population's dynamics was fecundity, which varied as a function of how far a birds territory was from an ecological edge. As our model landscape became more fragmented the proportion of forest habitat that was near edges increased geometrically, and the population's overall fecundity dropped as a result. The model demonstrates that impaired reproduction in a fragmented landscape is, by itself a sufficient disruption of the population's dynamics to generate population declines and shifts in distribution similar to those observed in the fragmented forests of southern Wisconsin. Without immigration of recruits from other regions where reproduction is better, habitat-interior populations in a severely fragmented landscape can become locally extinct.     

缢蛏6个群体遗传结构的ISSR分析

采用ISSR分子标记对采自福建宁德(ND)、浙江台州(TZ)、上海崇明(CM)、山东海阳(HY)、天津汉沽(HG)和辽宁庄河(ZH)的缢蛏6个野生群体进行遗传多样性和遗传关系分析.筛选出10条ISSR引物对6个群体共216个样品进行扩增,共得到138个清晰的扩增位点,其中多态性位点135个,多态位点百分率为97.83%,在物种水平上的遗传多样性较为丰富.群体遗传多样性分析结果表明,6个群体的多态位点百分率在61.59%～72.46%之间,基因多样性指数和Shannon's信息指数分别在0.104 3～0.176 6和0.178 9～0.280 8之间,其中ND群体的多样性指数最低.群体间遗传分化、遗传距离和聚类结构显示,ND群体和TZ群体亲缘关系最近,首先聚为一支,之后依次与CM群体及HG群体和HY群体聚类,最后与ZH群体聚在一起,表明地理位置较远的群体,遗传距离也较远.     

Measurement of Genetic Variation in Endangered Populations: Bandicoots (Marsupialia: Peramelidae) as an Example

Abstract. Attempts to monitor the genetic variation of endangered populations by the use of blood protein electrophoresis often suffer from three drawbacks: a small sample of loci, lack of control populations with "normal" variation, and, sometimes, difficulty in confirming inheritance of electromorphs.
An endangered isolate (Hamilton, Victoria) of the eastern barred bandicoot, Perameles gunnii, was compared with a widespread, dense, conspecific population in Tasmania. A previous study of the effective size of the siolate suggested that the loss of variation should be detectable by protein electrophoresis if average heterozygosity () was approximately 0.057 in widespread, dense populations and 20 to 50 individuals from each population were analysed for 25 or more loci. However, no genetic variation was detected within or between samples.
Similar studies proposed as a baseline for monitioring genetic variation could be equally powerless to detect changes in variation, even with quite high values. The analysis of variation in DNA is expected to avoid many of the problems associated with blood protein studies.
This study highlights the importance of a control population. Analysis of the Hamilton population alone might have led us to concludce that the recent population crash has been responsible for the low variation; however, this conclusion is not warranted, because = 0 in the much larger Tasmania population.     

Developmental Instability in Fragmented Populations of Prairie Phlox: A Cautionary Tale

Abstract: Considerable attention has recently been focused on using levels of developmental instability among members of a population to detect environmental or genetic stresses on animals or plants. It is not yet clear, however, that high developmental instability in a sample of individuals always indicates environmental stress or poor genetic quality. We studied 13 fragmented populations of prairie phlox (   Phlox pilosa L.) to test the hypothesis that developmental instability should decrease with increasing population size—as expected if small populations suffer genetic problems associated with inbreeding or are exposed to more environmental stress than larger populations. We used two different measures of developmental instability, each calculated for two different traits: radial asymmetry of flowers (for petal width and petal length) and modular fluctuating asymmetry of leaves (  for leaf widths at two points along the leaf  ). There were weak but significant correlations among individuals for four of six pairwise combinations of these measures. Surprisingly, three of our four measures of developmental instability showed strong population size effects that were opposite to those expected: developmental instability increased with population size. We conclude that measures of developmental instability cannot be applied uncritically for biomonitoring without considerable knowledge of developmental mechanisms, natural history, and population biology of the species in question.     

Is Mutation Accumulation a Threat to the Survival of Endangered Populations?

The accumulation of new deleterious mutations has been predicted to constitute a significant threat to the survival of finite sexually reproducing populations. Three measures of genetic load were made on populations of Drosophila melanogaster maintained at effective population sizes of 25, 50, 100, 250, and 500 for 45 or 50 generations and their outbred base population and a new sample from the same wild population. Genetic loads were measured as fitness differentials between inbred and non-inbred lines derived from each population under both benign ( productivity of single pairs) and competitive (competitive index) conditions. No trend of smaller populations exhibiting greater genetic loads than larger ones was observed under either benign or competitive conditions. Further, genetic loads were similar in captive and wild populations. Frequencies of deleterious and lethal alleles on chromosome II were measured by making the chromosome (approximately 40% of the genome) homozygous using a marked balancer stock. Neither deleterious nor lethal allele frequencies exhibited a relationship with population size. The accumulation of detrimental mutations does not appear to pose a significant threat to finite sexual populations with effective sizes of 25 or more over the 100–200 year time frames considered in most wildlife conservation programs.     

Genetic Structure and Migration in Native and Reintroduced Rocky Mountain Wolf Populations

Gray wolf (Canis lupus) recovery in the Rocky Mountains of the U.S. is proceeding by both natural recolonization and managed reintroduction. We used DNA microsatellite analysis of wolves transplanted from Canada to two reintroduction sites in the U.S. to study population structure in native and reintroduced wolf populations. Gene flow due to migration between regions in Canada is substantial, and all three recovery populations in the U.S. had high genetic variation. The reintroduced founders were moderately genetically divergent from the naturally colonizing U.S. population. These findings corroborate that the reintroduction more than meets generally accepted genetic guidelines. Maintaining this variation, however, will depend on ample reproduction in the first few generations. In the long term genetic variation will best be retained if migration occurs among the recolonizing and the two transplanted populations. Evidence from field observation and genetic studies shows extensive dispersal by wolves, and we conclude that exchange among these groups due to natural dispersal is likely if public tolerance and legal protection are adequate outside lands designated for wolf recovery.     

Effects of Population Size on Seed Production and Germinability in an Endangered, Fragmented Grassland Plant

Abstract: Fragmentation and isolation of plant populations are thought to affect demographic processes such as seed production and cause reductions in fitness. I followed seed set over a 3-year period in eight populations of the endangered Rutidosis leptorrhynchoides (Asteraceae) that differed in population size from 13 to over 5000 flowering plants. Germinability of the resultant seed was also examined to determine whether small populations had lower fitness than large populations. Seed set was significantly associated with population size in 2 of the 3 years. Small populations (<30 flowering plants) produced significantly fewer seeds per head in 1994 and 1995 than did large populations (500 to over 5000 flowering plants), which did not differ significantly from one another. There was, however, substantial variation within populations. In 1993 seed production did not follow any simple relationship with population size, possibly because environmental stress from low rainfall had an overriding impact. Differences in seed germinability between populations were largely not evident, suggesting that this aspect of fitness has not declined substantially in small populations relative to large populations. This study suggests that nongenetic, demographic factors are of immediate importance to the persistence of small populations of R. leptorrhynchoides because of their potential impacts on seedling recruitment.     

Efficacy of Land-Cover Models in Predicting Isolation of Marbled Salamander Populations in a Fragmented Landscape

Abstract:  Amphibians worldwide are facing rapid declines due to habitat loss and fragmentation, disease, and other causes. Where habitat alteration is implicated, there is a need for spatially explicit conservation plans. Models built with geographic information systems (GIS) are frequently used to inform such planning. We explored the potential for using GIS models of functional landscape connectivity as a reliable proxy for genetically derived measures of population isolation. We used genetic assignment tests to characterize isolation of marbled salamander populations and evaluated whether the relative amount of modified habitat around breeding ponds was a reliable indicator of population isolation. Using a resampling analysis, we determined whether certain land-cover variables consistently described population isolation. We randomly drew half the data for model building and tested the performance of the best models on the other half 100 times. Deciduous forest was consistently associated with lower levels of population isolation, whereas salamander populations in regions of agriculture and anthropogenic development were more isolated. Models that included these variables and pond size explained 65–70% of variation in genetically inferred isolation across sites. The resampling analysis confirmed that these habitat variables were consistently good predictors of isolation. Used judiciously, simple GIS models with key land-cover variables can be used to estimate population isolation if field sampling and genetic analysis are not possible.     

Rapid Loss of Genetic Variation in Large Captive Populations of Drosophila Flies: Implications for the Genetic Management of Captive Populations

Levels of variation in eight large captive populations of D. melanogaster (census sizes ∼ 5000) that had been in captivity for periods from 6 months to 23 years (8 to 365 generations) were estimated from allozyme heterozygosities, lethal frequencies, and inversion heterozygosities and phenotypic variances, additive genetic variances ( V _A), and heritabilities ( h ²) for sternopleural bristle numbers. Correlations between all measures of variation except lethal frequencies were high and significant. All measures of genetic variation declined with time in captivity, with those for average heterozygosities, V _A, and h ² being significant. The effective population size ( N _e) was estimated to be 185–253 in these populations, only 0.037–0.051 of census size (N). Levels of allozyme heterozygosities declined rapidly in two large captive populations founded from another wild stock, being reduced by 86% and 62% within 2.5 years in spite of being maintained at sizes of approximately 1000 and 3500. Estimates of N _e/ N for these populations were only 0.016 and 0.004. Two estimates of N _e/ N for captive populations of D. pseudoobscura from data in the literature were also low at 0.036 and 0.012. Consequently, the rate of loss of genetic variation in captive populations and endangered species may be more rapid than hitherto recognized. Merely maintaining captive populations at large census sizes may not be sufficient to maintain essential genetic variation.