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Conservation priorities in an endangered estuarine seahorse are informed by demographic history
Historical demographic events shape genetic diversity that remains evident in the genomes of contemporary populations. In the case of species that are of conservation concern, this information helps to unravel evolutionary histories that can be critical in guiding conservation efforts. The Knysna se...
Autores principales: | , , |
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Formato: | Online Artículo Texto |
Lenguaje: | English |
Publicado: |
Nature Publishing Group UK
2021
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Materias: | |
Acceso en línea: | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7892823/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/33603090 http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/s41598-021-83754-4 |
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author | Mkare, Thomas Kalama Jansen van Vuuren, Bettine Teske, Peter R. |
author_facet | Mkare, Thomas Kalama Jansen van Vuuren, Bettine Teske, Peter R. |
author_sort | Mkare, Thomas Kalama |
collection | PubMed |
description | Historical demographic events shape genetic diversity that remains evident in the genomes of contemporary populations. In the case of species that are of conservation concern, this information helps to unravel evolutionary histories that can be critical in guiding conservation efforts. The Knysna seahorse, Hippocampus capensis, is the world’s most endangered seahorse species, and it presently survives in only three estuaries on the South African south coast. Factors that contributed to the species becoming endangered are unclear; additionally, the lack of information on whether the three populations should be managed separately because of potential long-term isolation hampers effective management efforts. In the present study, we reconstructed the seahorses’ demographic history using a suite of microsatellite loci. We found that the largest population (Knysna Estuary) has colonised the other estuaries relatively recently (< 450 years ago), and that its population size is comparatively large and stable. Neither of the other two populations shows signs of long-term reductions in population size. The high conservation status of the species is thus a result of its limited range rather than historical population declines. Our findings indicate that the long-term survival of H. capensis depends primarily on the successful management of the Knysna population, although the other estuaries may serve as reservoirs of genetic diversity. |
format | Online Article Text |
id | pubmed-7892823 |
institution | National Center for Biotechnology Information |
language | English |
publishDate | 2021 |
publisher | Nature Publishing Group UK |
record_format | MEDLINE/PubMed |
spelling | pubmed-78928232021-02-22 Conservation priorities in an endangered estuarine seahorse are informed by demographic history Mkare, Thomas Kalama Jansen van Vuuren, Bettine Teske, Peter R. Sci Rep Article Historical demographic events shape genetic diversity that remains evident in the genomes of contemporary populations. In the case of species that are of conservation concern, this information helps to unravel evolutionary histories that can be critical in guiding conservation efforts. The Knysna seahorse, Hippocampus capensis, is the world’s most endangered seahorse species, and it presently survives in only three estuaries on the South African south coast. Factors that contributed to the species becoming endangered are unclear; additionally, the lack of information on whether the three populations should be managed separately because of potential long-term isolation hampers effective management efforts. In the present study, we reconstructed the seahorses’ demographic history using a suite of microsatellite loci. We found that the largest population (Knysna Estuary) has colonised the other estuaries relatively recently (< 450 years ago), and that its population size is comparatively large and stable. Neither of the other two populations shows signs of long-term reductions in population size. The high conservation status of the species is thus a result of its limited range rather than historical population declines. Our findings indicate that the long-term survival of H. capensis depends primarily on the successful management of the Knysna population, although the other estuaries may serve as reservoirs of genetic diversity. Nature Publishing Group UK 2021-02-18 /pmc/articles/PMC7892823/ /pubmed/33603090 http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/s41598-021-83754-4 Text en © The Author(s) 2021 Open Access This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article's Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article's Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this licence, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/. |
spellingShingle | Article Mkare, Thomas Kalama Jansen van Vuuren, Bettine Teske, Peter R. Conservation priorities in an endangered estuarine seahorse are informed by demographic history |
title | Conservation priorities in an endangered estuarine seahorse are informed by demographic history |
title_full | Conservation priorities in an endangered estuarine seahorse are informed by demographic history |
title_fullStr | Conservation priorities in an endangered estuarine seahorse are informed by demographic history |
title_full_unstemmed | Conservation priorities in an endangered estuarine seahorse are informed by demographic history |
title_short | Conservation priorities in an endangered estuarine seahorse are informed by demographic history |
title_sort | conservation priorities in an endangered estuarine seahorse are informed by demographic history |
topic | Article |
url | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7892823/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/33603090 http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/s41598-021-83754-4 |
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