Environmental Futures Centre and Australian Rivers Institute, Griffith University, Nathan, Australia.
Biol Lett. 2012 Aug 23;8(4):586-9. doi: 10.1098/rsbl.2012.0053. Epub 2012 Feb 22.
Historically, king penguin populations on Macquarie Island have suffered greatly from human exploitation. Two large colonies on the island were drastically reduced to a single small colony as a result of harvesting for the blubber oil industry. However, recent conservation efforts have resulted in the king penguin population expanding in numbers and range to recolonize previous as well as new sites. Ancient DNA methods were used to estimate past genetic diversity and combined with studies of modern populations, we are now able to compare past levels of variation with extant populations on northern Macquarie Island. The ancient and modern populations are closely related and show a similar level of genetic diversity. These results suggest that the king penguin population has recovered past genetic diversity in just 80 years owing to conservation efforts, despite having seen the brink of extinction.
从历史上看，麦夸里岛的王企鹅种群深受人类开发之害。岛上的两个大聚居地因被用于提取鲸脂油而急剧减少到只剩下一个小聚居地。然而，最近的保护努力使得王企鹅的数量和范围都有所扩大，重新占领了以前和新的栖息地。古 DNA 方法被用来估计过去的遗传多样性，并结合现代种群的研究，我们现在能够将过去的变异水平与麦夸里岛北部现存的种群进行比较。古代和现代的种群密切相关，显示出相似的遗传多样性水平。这些结果表明，尽管王企鹅种群曾濒临灭绝，但由于保护努力，仅用 80 年就恢复了过去的遗传多样性。
