Engelhardt Antje, Muniz Laura, Perwitasari-Farajallah Dyah, Widdig Anja
School of Natural Sciences and Psychology, Liverpool John Moores University, L3 3AF, Liverpool, UK.
Junior Research Group of Primate Sexual Selection, German Primate Center, 37077 Göttingen, Germany.
Int J Primatol. 2017;38(4):672-691. doi: 10.1007/s10764-017-9973-x. Epub 2017 Jul 21.
Genetic analyses based on noninvasively collected samples have become an important tool for evolutionary biology and conservation. Crested macaques (), endemic to Sulawesi, Indonesia, are important for our understanding of primate evolution as Sulawesi macaques represent an exceptional example of primate adaptive radiation. Crested macaques are also Critically Endangered. However, to date we know very little about their genetics. The aim of our study was to find and validate microsatellite markers useful for evolutionary, conservation, and other genetic studies on wild crested macaques. Using fecal samples of 176 wild macaques living in the Tangkoko Reserve, Sulawesi, we identified 12 polymorphic microsatellite loci through cross-species polymerase chain reaction amplification with later modification of some of these primers. We tested their suitability by investigating and exploring patterns of paternity, observed heterozygosity, and evidence for inbreeding. We assigned paternity to 63 of 65 infants with high confidence. Among cases with solved paternity, we found no evidence of extragroup paternity and natal breeding. We found a relatively steep male reproductive skew index of 0.330 ± 0.267; mean ± SD) and mean alpha paternity of 65% per year with large variation across groups and years (29-100%). Finally, we detected an excess in observed heterozygosity and no evidence of inbreeding across our three study groups, with an observed heterozygosity of 0.766 ± 0.059 and expected heterozygosity of 0.708 ± 0.059, and an inbreeding coefficient of -0.082 ± 0.035. Our results indicate that the selected markers are useful for genetic studies on wild crested macaques, and possibly also on other Sulawesi and closely related macaques. They further suggest that the Tangkoko population of crested macaques is still genetically variable despite its small size, isolation, and the species' reproductive patterns. This gives us hope that other endangered primate species living in small, isolated populations may also retain a healthy gene pool, at least in the short term.
基于非侵入性采集样本的遗传分析已成为进化生物学和保护研究的重要工具。冠毛猕猴（ ）是印度尼西亚苏拉威西岛的特有物种，对于我们理解灵长类动物的进化具有重要意义，因为苏拉威西猕猴是灵长类动物适应性辐射的一个特殊例子。冠毛猕猴也属于极度濒危物种。然而，迄今为止，我们对它们的遗传学了解甚少。我们研究的目的是寻找并验证对野生冠毛猕猴的进化、保护及其他遗传研究有用的微卫星标记。我们使用了生活在苏拉威西岛唐可可保护区的176只野生猕猴的粪便样本，通过跨物种聚合酶链反应扩增并对其中一些引物进行后续修饰，鉴定出了12个多态性微卫星位点。我们通过调查和探究亲子关系模式、观察到的杂合度以及近亲繁殖证据来测试它们的适用性。我们以高置信度确定了65只幼崽中63只的父系。在已解决亲子关系的案例中，我们没有发现群外交配和出生地繁殖的证据。我们发现雄性生殖偏斜指数相对较高（0.330 ± 0.267；均值 ± 标准差），每年的平均父系贡献率为65%，不同群体和年份之间存在较大差异（29% - 100%）。最后，我们在三个研究群体中检测到观察到的杂合度过高且没有近亲繁殖的证据，观察到的杂合度为0.766 ± 0.059，预期杂合度为0.708 ± 0.059，近亲繁殖系数为 -0.082 ± 0.035。我们的结果表明，所选标记对野生冠毛猕猴的遗传研究有用，可能对其他苏拉威西猕猴及亲缘关系较近的猕猴也有用。结果还进一步表明，尽管唐可可的冠毛猕猴种群规模小、处于隔离状态且具有特定繁殖模式，但该种群在遗传上仍然具有变异性。这让我们希望生活在小而隔离种群中的其他濒危灵长类物种至少在短期内也可能保留健康的基因库。
