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Genetic structure of the black rhinoceros (Diceros bicornis) in south-eastern Africa

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Abstract

Despite an on-going struggle to conserve the endangered black rhinoceros (Diceros bicornis) since the 1980s, huge capital investment and several genetic surveys, the level of genetic structure and connectivity among populations in southern Africa is not well understood. Here, we undertake a major population genetic study of black rhinoceros in the Zimbabwe Lowveld, an area inhabited by over half of that country’s original Zambezi descendants plus one large population sourced from the relict KwaZulu stock of South Africa. Using nuclear microsatellite and mitochondrial DNA data, we found much higher levels of genetic diversity in the indigenous Zimbabwean populations, where observed multilocus heterozygosity was 0.54 versus 0.40 in KwaZulu, and maternal haplotype diversity was 0.77 versus 0.03. We show, for the first time, that both gene pools can be differentiated from each other on the basis of nuclear markers. This, along with the discovery of recent gene flow between all Lowveld populations, suggests that Zimbabwean and South African gene pools were prehistorically connected.

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Acknowledgments

We thank the International Rhino Foundation and the US Fish and Wildlife Service for financial support. We thank Steve Smith for comments on an earlier version of the manuscript.

Conflict of interest

The authors of this article have no financial or non-financial competing interests.

Funding

This work was supported by the International Rhino Foundation and the United States Fish and Wildlife Service.

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Centre for Conservation Science, National Zoological Gardens of South Africa, P.O. Box 754, Pretoria, 0001, South Africa

    Antoinette Kotzé & Desiré Lee Dalton

  2. Genetics Department, University of the Free State, P.O. Box 339, Bloemfontein, 9300, South Africa

    Antoinette Kotzé & Desiré Lee Dalton

  3. Lowveld Rhino Trust, P.O. Box CY1409, Causeway, Harare, Zimbabwe

    Raoul du Toit & Natasha Anderson

  4. International Rhino Foundation, Fort worth, TX, USA

    Raoul du Toit & Natasha Anderson

  5. Department of Integrative Biology and Evolution, Konrad Lorenz Institute for Ethology, University of Veterinary Medicine, Vienna, Savoyenstraße 1A, 1160, Vienna, Austria

    Yoshan Moodley

Authors
  1. Antoinette Kotzé
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  2. Desiré Lee Dalton
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  3. Raoul du Toit
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  4. Natasha Anderson
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  5. Yoshan Moodley
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Desiré Lee Dalton.

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Kotzé, A., Dalton, D.L., du Toit, R. et al. Genetic structure of the black rhinoceros (Diceros bicornis) in south-eastern Africa. Conserv Genet 15, 1479–1489 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10592-014-0632-x

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10592-014-0632-x

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