IUCN / SSC Cat Specialist Group - Digital Cat Library |
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| Luo, S.-J.; Johnson, W.E.; Smith, J.L.D.; O'Brien, S.J. | |
| Whats Is a Tiger? Genetics and Phylogeography | |
| 2010 Book Chapter | |
Modern tiger genome diversity is estimated to derive from a founder event that occurred around 72,000 to 108,000 years ago, coinciding with the Toba volcano super-eruption in Sumatra, Indonesia, that had possibly reduced the historical tiger population to a small demographic bottleneck. Since then ecological and biogeographic factors have led to the distinct population differentiation of at least six surviving subspecies. Assessment of verified subspecies ancestry (VSA) based on both mtDNA and microsatellite diagnostic systems offers a powerful tool that, if applied to captive tigers of uncertain background in the world, may increase by thousands the number of purebred tigers suitable for conservation management. A sample of captive tigers showed that they retain appreciable intrinsic genomic diversity unobserved in their wild counterparts; perhaps a consequence of inclusion of wild-caught founders to the large captive breeding world established for over a century. |
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