The impact of founder events and introductions on genetic variation in the muskox Ovibos moschatus

The muskox is an ungulate that is well adapted to severe arctic conditions. Native populations are today found in northern Canada, the Canadian archipelago and on the northeastern coast of Greenland. Throughout its existence the muskox has been subject to many fluctuations in population size, bot...

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Autor principal: Englund, Linda
Formato: L3
Lenguaje:Inglés
Publicado: SLU/Dept. of Wildlife, Fish and Environmental Studies 2008
Materias:
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author Englund, Linda
author_browse Englund, Linda
author_facet Englund, Linda
author_sort Englund, Linda
collection Epsilon Archive for Student Projects
description The muskox is an ungulate that is well adapted to severe arctic conditions. Native populations are today found in northern Canada, the Canadian archipelago and on the northeastern coast of Greenland. Throughout its existence the muskox has been subject to many fluctuations in population size, both due to changing climate and intensive hunting during the hide trade in the 18- and 1900's. However, small refugia have persisted, allowing the muskox to increase in numbers again. In addition, introductions and translocations of the muskox around the Arctic have allowed the species to colonise new territories such as west Greenland and Norway. In 1971 five muskoxen left Norway and founded a population in Härjedalen, Sweden. Today (2008) the Swedish population consists of seven individuals. When trying to reinforce the genetic variation within the population one cow was mated with a captive Greenlandic bull, which resulted in a calf in 2006. To find out how muskox populations have been affected by sequential founder events muskox samples from the Canadian archipelago, east and west Greenland, Norway and Sweden were studied, using highly variable microsatellite markers. The result shows that the allelic variation follows the expectations of the founder events where Canada has the highest variation, followed by Greenland. However, the Swedish population has more genetic variation than Norway. This is explained by the contribution of two new alleles by the half-Greenlandic calf, indicating that one individual can make a large impact regarding the genetic variation. Also, the zoo population contains a higher degree of genetic variation than many of the introduced populations, revealing the importance of preserving the breeding programmes in zoos.
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spelling RepoSLU122502017-11-01T12:34:10Z The impact of founder events and introductions on genetic variation in the muskox Ovibos moschatus Englund, Linda Canadian archipelago genetic variation Greenland introductions management microsatellites muskox Norway Ovibos moschatus sequential founder events Sweden The muskox is an ungulate that is well adapted to severe arctic conditions. Native populations are today found in northern Canada, the Canadian archipelago and on the northeastern coast of Greenland. Throughout its existence the muskox has been subject to many fluctuations in population size, both due to changing climate and intensive hunting during the hide trade in the 18- and 1900's. However, small refugia have persisted, allowing the muskox to increase in numbers again. In addition, introductions and translocations of the muskox around the Arctic have allowed the species to colonise new territories such as west Greenland and Norway. In 1971 five muskoxen left Norway and founded a population in Härjedalen, Sweden. Today (2008) the Swedish population consists of seven individuals. When trying to reinforce the genetic variation within the population one cow was mated with a captive Greenlandic bull, which resulted in a calf in 2006. To find out how muskox populations have been affected by sequential founder events muskox samples from the Canadian archipelago, east and west Greenland, Norway and Sweden were studied, using highly variable microsatellite markers. The result shows that the allelic variation follows the expectations of the founder events where Canada has the highest variation, followed by Greenland. However, the Swedish population has more genetic variation than Norway. This is explained by the contribution of two new alleles by the half-Greenlandic calf, indicating that one individual can make a large impact regarding the genetic variation. Also, the zoo population contains a higher degree of genetic variation than many of the introduced populations, revealing the importance of preserving the breeding programmes in zoos. SLU/Dept. of Wildlife, Fish and Environmental Studies 2008 L3 eng https://stud.epsilon.slu.se/12250/
spellingShingle Canadian archipelago
genetic variation
Greenland
introductions
management
microsatellites
muskox
Norway
Ovibos moschatus
sequential founder events
Sweden
Englund, Linda
The impact of founder events and introductions on genetic variation in the muskox Ovibos moschatus
title The impact of founder events and introductions on genetic variation in the muskox Ovibos moschatus
title_full The impact of founder events and introductions on genetic variation in the muskox Ovibos moschatus
title_fullStr The impact of founder events and introductions on genetic variation in the muskox Ovibos moschatus
title_full_unstemmed The impact of founder events and introductions on genetic variation in the muskox Ovibos moschatus
title_short The impact of founder events and introductions on genetic variation in the muskox Ovibos moschatus
title_sort impact of founder events and introductions on genetic variation in the muskox ovibos moschatus
topic Canadian archipelago
genetic variation
Greenland
introductions
management
microsatellites
muskox
Norway
Ovibos moschatus
sequential founder events
Sweden