Abstract
Genetic diversity is an important consideration in developing effective conservation strategies for threatened species. The Saunders’s Gull (Saundersilarus saundersi) is a globally vulnerable species, which breeds in coastal wetlands in eastern China and western South Korea. Approximately 85% of the world population breeds at three sites along Bohai Bay in eastern China: Nanxiaohe in Liaohekou National Nature Reserve of Liaoning Province, and Yiqianer and Dawenliu in Yellow River Delta National Nature Reserve of Shandong Province. We examined mitochondrial and nuclear markers to detect genetic diversity and phylogeographic structure of the three Bohai Bay subpopulations. Unexpectedly high genetic diversity was observed in both mitochondrial and nuclear markers for every subpopulation. There was no evidence of phylogeographic structure among the three breeding subpopulations, indicating high levels of gene flow in the recent past, possibly continuing into the present day. These results reveal high levels of genetic diversity and evolutionary potential among the current populations of S. saundersi in Bohai Bay. If timely conservation measures are implemented, this gull species would has excellent prospects for long-term survival.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
References
Bandelt H-J, Forster P, Röhl A (1999) Median-joining networks for inferring intraspecific phylogenies. Mol Biol Evol 16:37–48
BirdLife International (2016) Species factsheet: Saundersi Saundersilarus saundersi. http://www.birdlife.org. Accessed 07 March 2016
Cao L, Barter M, Wang X (2008) Saunders’s gull: a new population estimate. Bird Conserv Int 18:301–306
Chen JZ, Yauk CL, Hebert C, Hebert PD (2001) Genetic variation in mitochondrial DNA of north american herring gulls, Larus argentatus. J Great Lakes Res 27:199–209
Crochet PA, Chen JZ, Pons JM, Lebreton JD, Hebert PD, Bonhomme F (2003) Genetic differentiation at nuclear and mitochondrial loci among large white-headed gulls: sex-biased interspecific gene flow? Evolution 57:2865–2878
Cui BS, Yang QC, Yang ZF, Zhang KJ (2009) Evaluating the ecological performance of wetland restoration in the Yellow River Delta, China. Ecol Eng 35:1090–1103
Dantas GPM, Meyer D, Godinho R, Ferrand N, Morgante JS (2012) Genetic variability in mitochondrial and nuclear genes of Larus dominicanus (charadriiformes, laridae) from the Brazilian coast. Genet Mol Bio 35:847–885
Drummond AJ, Suchard MA, Xie D, Rambaut A (2012) Bayesian phylogenetics with Beauti and the Beast 1.7. Mol Biol Evol 29:1969–1973
Falush D, Stephens M, Pritchard JK (2003) Inference of population structure using multilocus genotype data: linked loci and correlated allele frequencies. Genetics 164:1567–1587
Jiang HX, Hou YQ, Qian FW, Chu GZ, Li YX, Wang H, Shan K, Zheng GM (2008) Population genetic divergence and migration pattern of the saunders’s gull Saundersilarus saundersi. Acta Zool Sin 54:767–776
Jiang HX, Hou YQ, Chu GZ, Qian FW, Wang H, Zhang GG, Zheng GM (2010a) Breeding population dynamics and habitat transition of Saunders’s Gull Saundersilarus saundersi in Yancheng National Nature Reserve, China. Bird Conserv Int 20:13–24
Jiang HX, Hou YQ, Li YX, Takeishi M, Ozaki K, Yang YC, Zheng GM (2010b) Using marked individuals to explore migration pattern and estimate survival rates of saunders’s gull at Shuangtaihekou National Nature Reserve, China. Acta Ecol Sin 30:4186
Jiang HX, Ren SL, Hou YQ, Yang M, Wu XB (2011) Isolation and characterization of tetranucleotide repeat polymorphic microsatellite loci in Saundersilarus saundersi (Aves, Laridae). Genet Mol Res 10:2034–2037
Jombart T, Ahmed I (2011) Adegenet 1.3-1: new tools for the analysis of genome-wide SNP data. Bioinformatics 27:3070–3071
Li DL, Chen SH, Lloyd H, Zh SY, Shan K, Zhang ZW (2013) The importance of artificial habitats to migratory waterbirds within a natural/artificial wetland mosaic, Yellow River Delta, China. Bird Conserv Int 23:184–198
Librado P, Rozas J (2009) DnaSP v5: a software for comprehensive analysis of DNA polymorphism data. Bioinformatics 25:1451–1452
Moreno-Mateos D, Power ME, Comı´n FA, Yockteng R (2012) Structural and functional loss in restored wetland ecosystems. PLoS Biol 10:e1001247. doi:10.1371/journal.pbio.1001247
National Report from the State Forestry Administration (2014) Fifteenth consultative meeting of the areement between the goverment of people’s pepublic of China and the government of Japan for the protection of migratory birds and their habitats. Deqing, China
Peakall R, Smouse PE (2006) Genalex 6: genetic analysis in Excel. Population genetic software for teaching and research. Mol Ecol Notes 6:288–295
Pons JM, Hassanin A, Crochet PA (2005) Phylogenetic relationships within the Laridae (Charadriiformes: Aves) inferred from mitochondrial markers. Mol Phylogenet Evol 37:686–699
Posada D (2008) Jmodeltest: phylogenetic model averaging. Mol Biol Evol 25:1253–1256
Qian FW, Chu GZ, Li DQ, LV JZ, Zhu SY, Shan K (2000) The surveys of breeding Saunder’s gull along the coast of Shandong Province. In: Proceedings of the 4th Ornithological Symposium of Mainland & Taiwan, China, pp 219–223
Qiu YJ, Li YX (2011) Saunders’ Gull. Liaoning Science & Technology Publishing House, Shenyang, pp 132–138
Rambaut A (2014) Figtree 1.4. 2 software. http://tree.bio.ed.ac.uk/software/figtree
Robinson RA, Lawson B, Toms MP, Peck KM, Kirkwood JK et al (2010) Emerging infectious disease leads to rapid population declines of common british birds. PLoS ONE 5:e12215. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0012215
Shi ZR, Thouless CR, Melville DS (1988) Discovery of the breeding grounds of Saunders’s Gull Larus saundersi. Ibis 130:445–446
Swinhoe R (1871) A revised catalogue of the birds of China and its islands: with descriptions of new species, references to former notes, and occasional remarks
Tamura K, Stecher G, Peterson D, Filipski A, Kumar S (2013) Mega6: molecular evolutionary genetics analysis version 6.0. Mol Biol Evol 30:2725–2729
R Development Core Team (2014) R: A language and environment for statistical computing. Version 3.1.3. R foundation for statistical computing, Vienna, 2013. ISBN 3-900051-07-0
Wetlands International (2006) Waterbird population estimates, 4th edn. Wetlands International, Wageningen
Yang C, Lian T, Wang QX, Huang Y, Xiao H (2015) Preliminary study of genetic diversity and population structure of the Relict Gull Larus relictus (Charadriiformes Laridae) using mitochondrial and nuclear genes. Mitochondr DNA. doi:10.3109/19401736.2015.1022759
Acknowledgements
The study was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant No. 31372226). We thank Liaohekou National Nature Reserve and Yellow River Delta National Nature Reserve for giving us permission to conduct this study. In particular, we would like to thank Hongshan Zhang, Jiamei Xu of Yellow River Delta National Nature Reserve for assisting field works.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Electronic supplementary material
Below is the link to the electronic supplementary material.
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Zhang, YN., Liu, BY., Dong, L. et al. High genetic diversity and absence of phylogeographic structure in breeding populations of vulnerable Saundersilarus saundersi (Charadriiformes: Laridae) in Bohai Bay, China. Conserv Genet 18, 495–500 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10592-016-0911-9
Received:
Accepted:
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10592-016-0911-9