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Postglacial loss of microsatellite variation in the landlocked Lake Saimaa ringed seal

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Abstract

The Lake Saimaa ringed sealPhoca hispida saimensis has lived as anisolated landlocked population in easternFinland since the early post-glacial. In thelast century, the population crashed down to c.200 individuals, and is under a constant threatof extinction. We evaluated the genetic historyof the Saimaa population through a comparisonwith the conspecific sister populations in theArctic Ocean and the Baltic Sea, which haveretained high levels of variation since thedeglaciation. At eight microsatellite loci, thecurrent gene diversity (heterozygosity) of theSaimaa seal was 69% lower than in thereference populations. Allowing reasonablemutation rates (μ = 10−4), thisimplies a long-term post-glacial effectivepopulation size of N e ≃ 350,and a slow average rate of inbreeding ΔF≃ 0.15% per generation during the c.860 generations (9 500 years) of isolation. Thecurrent N e is an order of magnitudesmaller and ΔF correspondinglylarger. Whereas the additional loss of markervariation in the short term will not be highrelative to that already taken place, it seemsunwarranted to suppose that the past, slowinbreeding would have effectively purged thepopulation of genetic load and reduced thegenetic risks from small population size.Although the population is now clearlygeographically subdivided in the complex lakesystem, we found little genetic differentiationbetween main breeding areas (F ST =0.02). However, at the current low populationdensities, the subdivision may markedly furtherincrease the future rate of inbreeding.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Ecology and Systematics, Division of Population Biology, POB 65, FIN-00014 University of Helsinki, Finland;

    J.U. Palo & H.S. Mäkinen

  2. Department of Biology, University of Joensuu, POB 111, FIN-80101 Joensuu, Finland

    H. Hyvärinen

  3. Finnish Game and Fisheries Research Institute, POB 6, FIN-00721, Helsinki, Finland

    E. Helle & R. Väinölä

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  1. J.U. Palo
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  2. H. Hyvärinen
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  3. E. Helle
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  4. H.S. Mäkinen
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  5. R. Väinölä
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Correspondence to J.U. Palo.

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Palo, J., Hyvärinen, H., Helle, E. et al. Postglacial loss of microsatellite variation in the landlocked Lake Saimaa ringed seal. Conservation Genetics 4, 117–128 (2003). https://doi.org/10.1023/A:1023303109701

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