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How Ebola Impacts Genetics of Western Lowland Gorilla Populations

BACKGROUND: Emerging infectious diseases in wildlife are major threats for both human health and biodiversity conservation. Infectious diseases can have serious consequences for the genetic diversity of populations, which could enhance the species' extinction probability. The Ebola epizootic in...

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Autores principales: Le Gouar, Pascaline J., Vallet, Dominique, David, Laetitia, Bermejo, Magdalena, Gatti, Sylvain, Levréro, Florence, Petit, Eric J., Ménard, Nelly
Formato: Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Public Library of Science 2009
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2791222/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/20020045
http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0008375
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author Le Gouar, Pascaline J.
Vallet, Dominique
David, Laetitia
Bermejo, Magdalena
Gatti, Sylvain
Levréro, Florence
Petit, Eric J.
Ménard, Nelly
author_facet Le Gouar, Pascaline J.
Vallet, Dominique
David, Laetitia
Bermejo, Magdalena
Gatti, Sylvain
Levréro, Florence
Petit, Eric J.
Ménard, Nelly
author_sort Le Gouar, Pascaline J.
collection PubMed
description BACKGROUND: Emerging infectious diseases in wildlife are major threats for both human health and biodiversity conservation. Infectious diseases can have serious consequences for the genetic diversity of populations, which could enhance the species' extinction probability. The Ebola epizootic in western and central Africa induced more than 90% mortality in Western lowland gorilla population. Although mortality rates are very high, the impacts of Ebola on genetic diversity of Western lowland gorilla have never been assessed. METHODOLOGY/PRINCIPAL FINDINGS: We carried out long term studies of three populations of Western lowland gorilla in the Republic of the Congo (Odzala-Kokoua National Park, Lossi gorilla sanctuary both affected by Ebola and Lossi's periphery not affected). Using 17 microsatellite loci, we compared genetic diversity and structure of the populations and estimate their effective size before and after Ebola outbreaks. Despite the effective size decline in both populations, we did not detect loss in genetic diversity after the epizootic. We revealed temporal changes in allele frequencies in the smallest population. CONCLUSIONS/SIGNIFICANCE: Immigration and short time elapsed since outbreaks could explain the conservation of genetic diversity after the demographic crash. Temporal changes in allele frequencies could not be explained by genetic drift or random sampling. Immigration from genetically differentiated populations and a non random mortality induced by Ebola, i.e., selective pressure and cost of sociality, are alternative hypotheses. Understanding the influence of Ebola on gorilla genetic dynamics is of paramount importance for human health, primate evolution and conservation biology.
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spelling pubmed-27912222009-12-18 How Ebola Impacts Genetics of Western Lowland Gorilla Populations Le Gouar, Pascaline J. Vallet, Dominique David, Laetitia Bermejo, Magdalena Gatti, Sylvain Levréro, Florence Petit, Eric J. Ménard, Nelly PLoS One Research Article BACKGROUND: Emerging infectious diseases in wildlife are major threats for both human health and biodiversity conservation. Infectious diseases can have serious consequences for the genetic diversity of populations, which could enhance the species' extinction probability. The Ebola epizootic in western and central Africa induced more than 90% mortality in Western lowland gorilla population. Although mortality rates are very high, the impacts of Ebola on genetic diversity of Western lowland gorilla have never been assessed. METHODOLOGY/PRINCIPAL FINDINGS: We carried out long term studies of three populations of Western lowland gorilla in the Republic of the Congo (Odzala-Kokoua National Park, Lossi gorilla sanctuary both affected by Ebola and Lossi's periphery not affected). Using 17 microsatellite loci, we compared genetic diversity and structure of the populations and estimate their effective size before and after Ebola outbreaks. Despite the effective size decline in both populations, we did not detect loss in genetic diversity after the epizootic. We revealed temporal changes in allele frequencies in the smallest population. CONCLUSIONS/SIGNIFICANCE: Immigration and short time elapsed since outbreaks could explain the conservation of genetic diversity after the demographic crash. Temporal changes in allele frequencies could not be explained by genetic drift or random sampling. Immigration from genetically differentiated populations and a non random mortality induced by Ebola, i.e., selective pressure and cost of sociality, are alternative hypotheses. Understanding the influence of Ebola on gorilla genetic dynamics is of paramount importance for human health, primate evolution and conservation biology. Public Library of Science 2009-12-18 /pmc/articles/PMC2791222/ /pubmed/20020045 http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0008375 Text en Le Gouar et al. http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are properly credited.
spellingShingle Research Article
Le Gouar, Pascaline J.
Vallet, Dominique
David, Laetitia
Bermejo, Magdalena
Gatti, Sylvain
Levréro, Florence
Petit, Eric J.
Ménard, Nelly
How Ebola Impacts Genetics of Western Lowland Gorilla Populations
title How Ebola Impacts Genetics of Western Lowland Gorilla Populations
title_full How Ebola Impacts Genetics of Western Lowland Gorilla Populations
title_fullStr How Ebola Impacts Genetics of Western Lowland Gorilla Populations
title_full_unstemmed How Ebola Impacts Genetics of Western Lowland Gorilla Populations
title_short How Ebola Impacts Genetics of Western Lowland Gorilla Populations
title_sort how ebola impacts genetics of western lowland gorilla populations
topic Research Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2791222/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/20020045
http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0008375
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