Abstract
Dispersal is a key process for the maintenance of intraspecific genetic diversity by ensuring gene flow within and between populations. Despite the ongoing expansion of large carnivores in Europe, lynx populations remain fragmented, isolated, and threatened by inbreeding and loss of genetic diversity. In the course of large carnivore monitoring in the Czech Republic, several biological samples of Eurasian lynx were collected outside the permanent occurrence of this species. Using microsatellite genotyping we identified these as four dispersing lynx males and applied multiple methods (Bayesian clustering in STRUCTURE, Principal Component Analysis (PCA), frequency-based method in GENECLASS2, and machine-learning framework in assignPOP) to assign them to possible source populations. For this we used genotypes from five European lynx populations: the Bohemian-Bavarian-Austrian (N = 36), Carpathian (N = 43), Scandinavian (N = 20), Baltic (N = 15), and Harz (N = 23) population. All four dispersers were successfully assigned to different source populations within Europe and each was recorded at a distance of more than 98 km from the edge of the distribution of the source population identified. Such movements are among the longest described for lynx in Central Europe to this point. The findings indicate the ability of lynx males to disperse in human-dominated landscape thus facilitation of these movements via creation and/or protection of potential migratory corridors together with protection of dispersing individuals should be of high importance in conservation of this iconic predator in Central Europe.
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Genotype data are given in the Supplementary material, Table S2.
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Acknowledgements
We would like to thank to all volunteers of Wolf/Lynx patrols and members of NP and PLA administrations (especially Dana Bartošová, Hana Bednářová, Michal Bojda, Radim Chrobok, Vladimír Čech, Peter Drengubiak, Rostislav Dvořák, Michal Gajdár, Martin Gendiar, Ľuboslav Hrdý, František Jaskula, Petr Konupka, Martin Kraus, Jiří Labuda, Beňadik Machciník, Leona Marčáková, Stanislav Němec, Peter Pecík, Martin Špilák, Jerguš Tesák, Luděk Toman, Václav Tomášek, Martin Váňa) and to Ole Anders and the Lynx Harz team for their help with sample collection, to Josef Bryja and Petr Koubek for valuable comments to previous drafts of the manuscript, and Anna Bryjová for technical support in fragment analysis. Also, we would like to thank Rory Putman for revision of English and all valuable suggestions to the manuscript.
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This article is based upon work from COST Action G-Bike (CA18134), supported by COST (European Cooperation in Science and Technology). The study was financially supported by INTER-EXCELLENCE – INTER-COST (LTC20021), Interreg V-A SR-CR (304021D016), Interreg Central Europe (CE1001; 3Lynx) and by Institutional Research Plan (RVO: 68081766).
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BG wrote the first draft of the manuscript and performed statistical analyses. BG and JKP performed laboratory analyses and designed the study. All authors collected samples and edited/approved previous versions of the manuscript.
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Genetic material was collected in accordance with institutional, national, and international guidelines. Permits for animal capture and handling were obtained from the PLA Moravian Karst Administration and the Ministry of Environment of the Czech Republic, permit numbers: SR/0081/JM/2017; 34128/ENV/17-2146/630/17. No animals were killed due to sampling.
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Gajdárová, B., Belotti, E., Bufka, L. et al. Long-distance Eurasian lynx dispersal – a prospect for connecting native and reintroduced populations in Central Europe. Conserv Genet 22, 799–809 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10592-021-01363-0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10592-021-01363-0