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Fine-scale genetic structure and the design of optimal fertility control for an overabundant mammal

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Abstract

Hormonally-induced fertility control is increasingly used to manage overabundant wildlife where political or ethical considerations exclude culling or translocations. By altering reproductive rates, fertility control risks accelerating the loss of genetic variation from isolated wildlife populations if control is biased against particular genotypes. This is most likely in spatially structured populations, but information on patterns of genetic exchange can be difficult to ascertain by observation or trapping. Fertility control was proposed to manage an isolated but overabundant population of the black-flanked rock-wallaby, Petrogale lateralis lateralis, at Mt Caroline Nature Reserve, south-western Australia. This species typically inhabits large granite outcrops, where refuges within outcrops are often patchily distributed, and there is strong potential for population structure. We used fine-scale analysis of microsatellite DNA variation to establish the pre-fertility control extent of population structuring and the relative extent of gene flow in males and females in an isolated population of black-flanked rock-wallabies. Bayesian model-based clustering and fixation statistics revealed that overall gene flow is extensive, but two areas of refuge were genetically distinct from distant neighbours. Spatial autocorrelation analyses indicated that female-mediated gene flow was less extensive than male-mediated gene flow. Our results indicate that it would be desirable to apply fertility control to female rock wallabies within defined genetic isolates, but fertility control could be applied in a spatially random manner to males.

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Acknowledgments

This study was funded by a grant from the Holsworth Wildlife Research Endowment. The senior author was supported by an APAI scholarship through a Linkage grant from the Australian Research Council (Kangaroo and Koala Contraception Program), and The University of Western Australia. Our most sincere thanks go to Y. Hitchen for invaluable laboratory guidance, D. Stephens for technical advice, R. Peakall for advice on GENALEX analyses, M. Johnson for early ideas, and the Animal Biology UWA population genetics group for discussions. We are indebted to the McDonald family and numerous volunteers for assistance during fieldwork. We thank Carles Vilá and three anonymous reviewers for their constructive comments on the manuscript. All experimental procedures described in this paper were approved by The University of Western Australia’s Animal Ethics Committee (07/100/577) and the Department of Parks and Wildlife (SF006153, SF005628, SF006668).

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  1. Nicole Willers

    Present address: Department of Parks & Wildlife, Crawley, Australia II Drive, Crawley, WA, 6009, Australia

  2. Oliver Berry

    Present address: CSIRO Marine and Atmospheric Research, PMB 5, Floreat, WA, 6014, Australia

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  1. School of Animal Biology (M092), University of Western Australia, 35 Stirling Highway, Crawley, WA, 6009, Australia

    Nicole Willers, Oliver Berry & J. Dale Roberts

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  1. Nicole Willers
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Correspondence to Nicole Willers.

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Willers, N., Berry, O. & Dale Roberts, J. Fine-scale genetic structure and the design of optimal fertility control for an overabundant mammal. Conserv Genet 15, 1053–1062 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10592-014-0598-8

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