IUCN / SSC Cat Specialist Group - Digital Cat Library |
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| de Castilho, C.S. | |
| Gen‚tica e conserva‡Æo do leÆo-baio (_Puma concolor_) no sul do Brasil | |
| 2010 Full Book | |
The mountain lion (_Puma concolor_), the second-largest neotropical felid, occupies the largest geographical area in the Americas, with the subspecies that occurs in southern Brazil is listed as of least concern in the IUCN Red List and as vulnerable in Brazilian List of Threatened Species. In areas where the jaguars (_Panthera onca_) have been eradicated, mountain lions have played a key role in maintaining ecosystem processes and biodiversity as the top predator, as in southern Brazil. In this work we investigated the existence of a recent bottleneck and the genetic variability of mountain lions' population in southern Brazil. We search for evidences of population structure using Bayesian methods, estimated densities and percentage, and also we correlated landscape connectivity and patterns of gene flow to identify landscape permeability and possible sources of migrants for the population of mountain lions in southern Brazil, using circuit theory. We used 18 microsatellite loci and a Y-intron. A total of two Y-haplotypes and 106 alleles were identified, the number of alleles/locus ranged from 2 to 11. The mean observed heterozygosity, mean number of alleles, allelic richness, and polymorphism information content were 0.609, 5.89, 5.652, and 0.6255 respectively. This population showed evidence of a recent bottleneck, and the estimated effective population size was 16.5 and 23.54 using different algorithms. We did not find genetic structure between samples, and landscape analysis indicated that all individuals were connected by areas that are permeable to mountain lion movements. The estimated population density was low, 0.09 and 0.32 mountain lions/100 km2 (Ne/N=0.11 and Ne/N=0.4, respectively). Kinship analysis indicated that individuals killed in the same spot were not related, suggesting that mountain lions are still able to disperse through the landscape. Habitat loss and illegal hunting may be responsible for a observed recent bottleneck and consequent loss of genetic variability, we demonstrated that the landscape still allows mountain lions to disperse widely, and that protected areas in southern Brazil may be acting as a source of migrants. This information indicates that actions to reduce illegal hunting and to maintain landscape connectivity are the priority for mountain lions conservancy in southern Brazil. |
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