Reed J Michael, Stockwell Craig A
Department of Biology, Tufts University, Medford, MA 02155, USA
Department of Biological Sciences, North Dakota State University, Fargo, ND 58108, USA
Proc Biol Sci. 2014 Nov 7;281(1794):20141648. doi: 10.1098/rspb.2014.1648.
The Devil's Hole pupfish Cyprinodon diabolis has iconic status among conservation biologists because it is one of the World's most vulnerable species. Furthermore, C. diabolis is the most widely cited example of a persistent, small, isolated vertebrate population; a chronic exception to the rule that small populations do not persist long in isolation. It is widely asserted that this species has persisted in small numbers (less than 400 adults) for 10 000-20 000 years, but this assertion has never been evaluated. Here, we analyse the time series of count data for this species, and we estimate time to coalescence from microsatellite data to evaluate this hypothesis. We conclude that mean time to extinction is approximately 360-2900 years (median 410-1800), with less than a 2.1% probability of persisting 10 000 years. Median times to coalescence varied from 217 to 2530 years, but all five approximations had wide credible intervals. Our analyses suggest that Devil's Hole pupfish colonized this pool well after the Pleistocene Lakes receded, probably within the last few hundred to few thousand years; this could have occurred through human intervention.
魔洞鳉（Cyprinodon diabolis）在保护生物学家中具有标志性地位，因为它是世界上最脆弱的物种之一。此外，魔洞鳉是持久存在的小型孤立脊椎动物种群中被引用最广泛的例子；这是一个长期存在的例外情况，打破了小种群难以长期孤立存在的规律。人们普遍认为该物种已经以少量个体（少于400只成年个体）存续了1万至2万年，但这一说法从未得到评估。在此，我们分析了该物种数量统计数据的时间序列，并根据微卫星数据估计了合并时间，以评估这一假设。我们得出结论，平均灭绝时间约为360至2900年（中位数为410至1800年），存续1万年的概率不到2.1%。合并时间的中位数在217至2530年之间，但所有五种近似值都有较宽的可信区间。我们的分析表明，魔洞鳉在更新世湖泊消退后很久才定殖于这个水池，可能是在过去几百到几千年内；这可能是通过人类干预发生的。
