IUCN / SSC Cat Specialist Group - Digital Cat Library |
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| Sharma, S.; Dutta, T.; Seidensticker, J.; Maldonado, J.E. | |
| Noninvasive Genotyping for Identifying Individual Tigers (_Panthera tigris_) and its Potential for Their Population Estimation | |
| 2007 Conference Proceeding | |
Tigers (_Panthera tigris_) are an endangered cat species of Asia. Their effective conservation and management requires reliable and precise population estimates, which are often difficult to obtain by conventional population monitoring methods owing to their solitary nocturnal nature and large home-ranges. Direct methods of population estimation of tigers require accurate identification of individuals that is often difficult in the wild. Here we present a noninvasive method developed to identify individual tigers by genotyping their hair and fecal samples. We screened nine microsatellite loci in 33 captive tigers. Seven of these loci were found to have high amplification rates and adequate levels of heterozygosity (Mean observed het = 0.53) and polymorphism for genotyping individual tigers with numbers of alleles per locus ranging from six to 23. We found a low probability of identifying matching genotypes for unrelated individuals (3.04 x 10-12) demonstrating the potential use of this method for population estimation and identification of individual tigers in the wild. We also present our results of experimentation involving weathering of scats and the use of various preservative media to test the reliability of genotyping old and degraded scat samples. |
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