Journal ArticleDOI
Conservation genetics of the endangered Isle Royale gray wolf
Robert K. Wayne,Niles Lehman,Derek J. Girman,Peter J. P. Gogan,Dennis A. Gilbert,Kimberly Hansen,Rolf O. Peterson,U.S. Seal,Andrew Eisenhawer,L. D. Mech,R.J. Krumenaker +10 more
TLDR
In this article, the issues of genetic variability and relationships of Isle Royale wolves using allozyme electrophoresis, mtDNA restriction-site analysis, and multilocus hypervariable minisatellite DNA analysis (genetic fingerprinting) were addressed.Abstract:
The small group of wolves on Isle Royale has been studiedfor over three decades as a model of the relationship between large carnivores and their prey. During the last ten years the population declined from 50 individuals to asfew as 12 individuals. The causes of this decline may be food shortages, disease, or reduced genetic variability. We address the issues of genetic variability and relationships of Isle Royale wolves using allozyme electrophoresis, mtDNA restriction-site analysis, and multilocus hypervariable minisatellite DNA analysis (genetic fingerprinting). Our results indicate that approximately 50% of the allozyme heterozygosity has been lost in the island population; a decline similar to that expected if no immigration had occurred from the mainland. The genetic fingerprinting data indicate that the seven sampled Isle Royale wolves are as similar as captive populations of siblings. Surprisingly, the Isle Royale Correspondence s/ould be a44ressed to this autbor Paper submitted May 7, 1990; revised manuscript accepted October 10, 1990. See table of contents for order of author's names for citation purposes. Resumen: El pequeno grupo de lobos de la Isla Royale ha sido estudiado por mas de tres decadas como un modelo de las relaciones entre grandes carni'voros y su presa Durante los ultimos diez anios la poblacion disminuyo de 50 individuos a tan solo 12 individuos. La causa de esta disminucion puede ser debida a la escasez de comida a las enfermedades o a la reducida variabilidad genetica Nosotros tratamos el aspecto de la variabilidad genetica y las relaciones con los lobos de la Isla Royale utilizando la electroforesis con aloenzimas, el ana'lisis restringido a mtDNA y el analisis de hipervariable multilocus minisatelite DNA (huellas geneticas). Nuestros resultados indican que aproximadamente el 50% de la heterozigosis de la aloenzima ha sidoperdida en lapoblacion de la isla esta es una disminucion similar a la que se esperari'a si no hubiese habido inmigracion de la tierrafirme. Los datos de las huellas geneticas indican que los siete lobos muestreados en la Isla Royale son tan parecidos entresi como las poblaciones de bermanos en cautiverio. Sorprendentemente los lobos de la Isla Royale tienen un genotipo mtDNA que es muy raro en tierrafirme habiendo sido encontrado en solamente uno deread more
Citations
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Journal ArticleDOI
Do island populations have less genetic variation than mainland populations
TL;DR: A large and highly significant majority of island populations have less allozyme genetic variation than their mainland counterparts, the average reduction being 29 per cent, and the magnitude of differences was related to dispersal ability.
Journal ArticleDOI
Applications of mitochondrial DNA analysis in conservation: a critical review
TL;DR: There are some relatively straightforward uses of mtDNA, preferably in conjunction with assays of nuclear variation, that can make a significant contribution to the long‐term planning and short‐term execution of species recovery plans.
Journal ArticleDOI
Limits to the adaptive potential of small populations
TL;DR: This work states that individuals in small populations have lower fitness owing to environmental stress and genetic problems such as inbreeding, which can substantially increase the extinction probability of populations in changing environments.
Journal ArticleDOI
Inbreeding and Extinction: Island Populations
TL;DR: Island populations are more prone to extinction than mainland populations, with island endemic species having higher extinction rates than nonendemic species and inbreeding depression is one possible explanation for this.
Journal ArticleDOI
Inbreeding and Extinction: A Threshold Effect
TL;DR: Methods were devised to separate genetic and nongenetic causes of extinction in inbred populations, and they were used to analyze data from Drosophila melanogaster, D. virilis and Mus musculus, which showed notably increased extinction beginning at intermediate levels of inbreeding.
References
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Book
Introduction to quantitative genetics
TL;DR: The genetic constitution of a population: Hardy-Weinberg equilibrium and changes in gene frequency: migration mutation, changes of variance, and heritability are studied.
Journal ArticleDOI
Estimating F-statistics for the analysis of population structure.
Bruce S. Weir,C. Clark Cockerham +1 more
TL;DR: The purpose of this discussion is to offer some unity to various estimation formulae and to point out that correlations of genes in structured populations, with which F-statistics are concerned, are expressed very conveniently with a set of parameters treated by Cockerham (1 969, 1973).
Book
Molecular Evolutionary Genetics
TL;DR: Recent developments of statistical methods in molecular phylogenetics are reviewed and it is shown that the mathematical foundations of these methods are not well established, but computer simulations and empirical data indicate that currently used methods produce reasonably good phylogenetic trees when a sufficiently large number of nucleotides or amino acids are used.
Journal ArticleDOI
Estimation of average heterozygosity and genetic distance from a small number of individuals
TL;DR: It is shown that the number of individuals to be used for estimating average heterozygosity can be very small if a large number of loci are studied and the average heter homozygosity is low.
Journal ArticleDOI
Mathematical model for studying genetic variation in terms of restriction endonucleases
Masatoshi Nei,Wen-Hsiung Li +1 more
TL;DR: A mathematical model for the evolutionary change of restriction sites in mitochondrial DNA is developed and a measure called "nucleotide diversity" is proposed to express the degree of polymorphism in a population at the nucleotide level.