Abstract
Confined to a small region in central Angola, the giant sable antelope (Hippotragus niger variani) experienced a dramatic decline in numbers and is currently one of the most endangered African mammals. In spite of its iconic status, conservation efforts have been hindered by unsustainable hunting and lack of adequate tools to promote its recovery. In this work, we developed a set of 57 microsatellites specific for the giant sable, which revealed depleted levels of genetic diversity and an allele frequency spectrum consistent with a recent evolutionary history characterized by severe population crashes. In contrast, the high number of private alleles exhibited by other H. niger populations from Zimbabwe and Tanzania may suggest the occurrence of reduced levels of gene flow among sable populations. Our microsatellite panel was successfully tested on the roan antelope, Hippotragus equinus, and will prove highly applicable on the characterization of different Hippotragus populations, but in particular for the conservation of the Angolan giant sable antelope.
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Acknowledgments
The Giant Sable Conservation Project is coordinated by the Ministry of Environment of the Republic of Angola, in collaboration with the Kissama Foundation. We thank Cardoso Bebeca, Joaquim Manuel, and General João Traguedo for support during the animal capture and handling, and the Angolan Air Force for heavy logistics made available. We also thank Bruce Fivaz for providing additional samples from Zimbabwe. We thank two anonymous reviewers for helpful comments on a previous version of this manuscript. The research was partly funded by the ExxonMobil Foundation. RG is supported by a IF2012 Research contract from FCT (Portuguese Science Foundation, IF/564/2012). This is scientific paper no. 1 from the Portuguese-Angolan TwinLab established between CIBIO/InBIO and ISCED/Huíla, Lubango.
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The authors declare that there are no conflicts of interest.
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Communicated by C. Gortázar
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Vaz Pinto, P., Lopes, S., Mourão, S. et al. First estimates of genetic diversity for the highly endangered giant sable antelope using a set of 57 microsatellites. Eur J Wildl Res 61, 313–317 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10344-014-0880-6
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10344-014-0880-6