Nikolic Natacha, Thompson Paul, de Bruyn Mark, Macé Matthias, Chevalet Claude
ARBRE (Reunion Island Biodiversity Research Agency), Saint-Leu, La Réunion.
Génétique Physiologie et Systèmes d'Elevage - UMR1388, INRAE, Castanet Tolosan, France.
PeerJ. 2020 Jul 10;8:e9167. doi: 10.7717/peerj.9167. eCollection 2020.
Efforts to conserve marine mammals are often constrained by uncertainty over their population history. Here, we examine the evolutionary history of a harbour seal () population in the Moray Firth, northeast Scotland using genetic tools and microsatellite markers to explore population change. Previous fine-scale analysis of UK harbour seal populations revealed three clusters in the UK, with a northeastern cluster that included our Moray Firth study population. Our analysis revealed that the Moray Firth cluster is an independent genetic group, with similar levels of genetic diversity across each of the localities sampled. These samples were used to assess historic abundance and demographic events in the Moray Firth population. Estimates of current genetic diversity and effective population size were low, but the results indicated that this population has remained at broadly similar levels following the population bottleneck that occurred after post-glacial recolonization of the area.
保护海洋哺乳动物的努力常常受到其种群历史不确定性的制约。在此，我们利用遗传工具和微卫星标记，研究了苏格兰东北部马里湾的一个港海豹种群的进化历史，以探究种群变化。此前对英国港海豹种群的精细尺度分析揭示，英国存在三个集群，其中一个东北部集群包括我们在马里湾的研究种群。我们的分析表明，马里湾集群是一个独立的遗传群体，在每个采样地点的遗传多样性水平相似。这些样本被用于评估马里湾种群的历史丰度和人口统计事件。当前遗传多样性和有效种群大小的估计值较低，但结果表明，在该地区冰川后重新定殖后发生种群瓶颈之后，该种群数量一直保持在大致相似的水平。
