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Gene flow and genetic structure of the puma and jaguar in Mexico

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Abstract

Gene flow among populations and subpopulations homogenizes allele frequencies. This mechanism is strongly influenced by species dispersal ability, frequently correlating genetic variation with distance among individuals, which is also known as an isolation-by-distance pattern. Species with high dispersal abilities are expected to show a limited isolation-by-distance pattern compared to those with reduced dispersal. Here, we use non-invasive genetic sampling of faeces to evaluate how isolation-by-distance is differentially structured in jaguar and puma populations in Mexico. We have optimized and validated a reliable and standardized non-invasive genetic sampling protocol to monitor pumas based on 12 microsatellite markers, as well as applied a previously published and consistent protocol for jaguars. We found that jaguars and pumas were not uniform and panmictic populations. Spatial trends in allele frequencies for both species generated clinal patterns. However, pumas showed a stronger isolation-by-distance pattern than jaguars, which was expected since pumas seem to have a lower dispersal ability than jaguars. The genetic structures of both species differed at the level of subpopulations. These results reinforce the differences in intensity of isolation-by-distance between two generalist species with high dispersal ability.

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Acknowledgments

This study was supported by Fundación BBVA (project BIOCON 05–100/06) and the Spanish Ministry of Science and Innovation (project CGL2010-16902) for the funds of this work.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Departamento de Biologia, Universidade Federal do Espírito Santo, Centro de Ciências Humanas e Naturais, Vitória, Espírito Santo, Brazil

    Marina Zanin

  2. Departamento de Biología de la Conservación, Estación Biológica de Doñana - CSIC, Sevilla, Spain

    Begoña Adrados, Noa González, Severine Roques & Francisco Palomares

  3. Departamento de Ecologia, Universidade Federal de Goiás, Goiânia, Goiás, Brazil

    Daniel Brito

  4. Universidad Autónoma Metropolitana-Unidad Lerma, Lerma, Estado de México, México

    Cuauhtemoc Chávez

  5. Universidad Autónoma de Sinaloa, Escuela de Biología, Culiacán Rosales, Sinaloa, México

    Yamel Rubio

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  1. Marina Zanin
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  2. Begoña Adrados
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  4. Severine Roques
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  8. Francisco Palomares
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Marina Zanin.

Electronic supplementary material

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Supplementary Material 1

Selection of microsatellite markers for puma individual identification (DOCX 15 kb)

Table S1

Measures of efficiency and diversity of 18 microsatellite loci tested to genotype pumas, with primer sequences, annealing temperature, PCR amplification success (%), error rates (allelic dropout and false alleles), number of alleles, allelic range (bps), polymorphism (PIC), expected and observed heterozygosity (H EXP and H OBS), probabilities of identity for siblings (PIDSIB) and for unrelated individuals (PID) (DOCX 16 kb)

Fig. S1

Mismatch probability distributions of the pumas and jaguars from both populations identified in our study. Dashed lines are mismatch probability distributions of full siblings, while unbroken lines are unrelated individuals. (TIF 23549 kb)

Table S2

Measures of diversity for 12 microsatellite loci in the five puma demes identified in the study. Sample size (N), allelic richness (A), rarefaction of allelic richness (AR), private alleles (PA), observed (H o) and expected (H e) heterozygosities, and inbreeding coefficient (F IS). (DOCX 16 kb)

Table S3

Measures of diversity at 11 microsatellite loci in the three jaguar demes of the study. Sample size (N), allelic richness (A), rarefaction of allelic richness (AR), private alleles (PA), observed (H o) and expected (H e) heterozygosities, and inbreeding coefficient (F IS). (DOCX 15 kb)

Fig. S2

Selection of principal components of the Spatial Principal Components Analysis (sPCA) for puma (left) and jaguar (right). Upper graphs (a and b) are eigenvalues expressing the explanatory power of the principal components. Lower graphs (c and d) display the genetic variance and spatial autocorrelation (measured by Moran’s I Index) contained in each principal component. For both species, the first principal component is the only one that captures spatial structure and substantial genetic variation, which corresponds to the outlier point in both graphs c and d. (TIF 39009 kb)

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Zanin, M., Adrados, B., González, N. et al. Gene flow and genetic structure of the puma and jaguar in Mexico. Eur J Wildl Res 62, 461–469 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10344-016-1019-8

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10344-016-1019-8

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