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Genetic variability in relocated Père David’s deer (Elaphurus davidianus) populations—Implications to reintroduction program

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Abstract

Since 1985, China has established three breeding herds of Père David’s deer: the Beijing Père David’s Deer Park (39°07′N, 116°03′E), the Dafeng Père David’s Deer Nature Reserve (33°05′N, 120°49′E) and Shishou (Tianezhou) Père David’s Deer Nature Reserve (29°49′N, 112°33′E), through reintroductions of about 30–40 founders. Since establishment, all three populations have grown steadily. However, genetic backgrounds in those populations are still unknown. We studied the genetic diversity in Père David’s deer and genetic consequences of population relocations in China. We revealed that genetic diversity was extremely low in Père David’s deer populations in China. Only a single mtDNA D-loop haplotype was found in the deer, furthermore, only five polymorphic microsatellite loci were screened out from 84 pairs of species-transferred primers. Genetic makeup in the three Père David’s deer populations were significantly different (P < 0.01). H E and allelic richness in the Tianezhou population were the highest (0.54, 2.60, n = 31), Beijing population (0.52, 2.4, n = 125) showed the second highest measures, while the Dafeng population (0.46, 2.39, n = 39) measured lowest. Our results suggest that effective management of a species of low genetic diversity like the Père David’s deer should consider the genetic background of each founder to make sure genetic variations are preserved in both source population and relocated population. Now, the Tianezhou population is the most appropriate source population in China when establishing new Père David deer populations in the wild.

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Notes

  1. ABS12, AF5, AFR227, AGLA226, AGLA232, BL4, BM1225, BM1329, BM1706, BM203, BM2320, BM2934, BM4107, BM4440, BM4513, BM5004, BM757, BM888, BR3510, C217, CSSM26, CSSM26, CSSM29, CSSM39, CSSM41, CSSM43, HUJ175, IDVGA29, IDVGA3, IDVGA37, IDVGA39, IDVGA55, IDVGA8, ILSTS6, ILSTS93, INRA107, INRA121, INRA131, INRA169, JAB8, MGTG4B, NRAMP1, RBP3, RM12, RM178, RM188, RM95, RT1, RT23, RT5, T156, T172, T193, TEXAN15, TGLA10, TGLA127, TGLA226, TGLA337, TGLA378, TGLA40, TGLA431, and TGLA86 are from autosomes. BL22, and XBM31 are X-autosome-specific primers. BOV97M(DYS2), BRY.1(DYZ7), INRA008(DYS3), TSPY, UMN0103, UMN0301, UMN0304, UMN0307, UMN0311, UMN0406, UMN0504, UMN0705(TSPY-MS), UMN0920, UMN1113, UMN1201, UMN1203, UMN1307, UMN1514, UMN2303, and UMN3008 are Y-autosome-specific primers.

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Acknowledgements

We thank to Zhang Linyuan, Xia Jingshi, Zhong Zhenyu and Tang Baotian of the Beijing Père David’s deer Park, Ding Yuhua and Xu Anhong of the Dafeng Père David’s deer Natural Reserve, Wen Huajun and Li Pengfei of the Tianezhou Père David’s deer Natural Reserve for their kindly assists for sampling. We thank Dr. Michael Heiner for his help in editing the manuscript. We also acknowledge the Knowledge Innovation Project of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CXTDS2005-4), Chinese Natural Science Foundation (No. 30270206, 30430120) for financial assistance.

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  1. Key Laboratory of Animal Ecology and Conservation Biology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Institute of Zoology, No. 25 Beisihuan Xi Lu, Beijing, 100080, China

    Yan Zeng, Zhigang Jiang & Chunwang Li

  2. Graduated School of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, 100049, China

    Yan Zeng & Zhigang Jiang

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  1. Yan Zeng
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Correspondence to Zhigang Jiang.

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Zeng, Y., Jiang, Z. & Li, C. Genetic variability in relocated Père David’s deer (Elaphurus davidianus) populations—Implications to reintroduction program. Conserv Genet 8, 1051–1059 (2007). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10592-006-9256-0

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