Affiliation:
1. Environmental & Life Sciences Graduate Program Trent University Peterborough Ontario Canada
2. Wildlife Research and Monitoring Section, Ontario Ministry of Natural Resources and Forestry Trent University Peterborough Ontario Canada
3. Landscape Science and Technology Division Environment and Climate Change Canada Ottawa Ontario Canada
4. Biology Department Trent University Peterborough Ontario Canada
Abstract
AbstractCaribou (Rangifer tarandus) have experienced dramatic declines in both range and population size across Canada over the past century. Boreal caribou (R. t. caribou), 1 of the 12 Designatable Units, has lost approximately half of its historic range in the last 150 years, particularly along the southern edge of its distribution. Despite this overall northward contraction, some populations have persisted at the trailing range edge, over 150 km south of the continuous boreal caribou range in Ontario, along the coast and nearshore islands of Lake Superior. The population history of caribou along Lake Superior remains unclear. It appears that these caribou likely represent a remnant distribution at the trailing edge of the receding population of boreal caribou, but they may also exhibit local adaptation to the coastal environment. A better understanding of the population structure and history of caribou along Lake Superior is important for their conservation and management. Here, we use high‐coverage whole genomes (N = 20) from boreal, eastern migratory, and barren‐ground caribou sampled in Manitoba, Ontario, and Quebec to investigate population structure and inbreeding histories. We discovered that caribou from the Lake Superior range form a distinct group but also found some evidence of gene flow with the continuous boreal caribou range. Notably, caribou along Lake Superior demonstrated relatively high levels of inbreeding (measured as runs of homozygosity; ROH) and genetic drift, which may contribute to the differentiation observed between ranges. Despite inbreeding, caribou along Lake Superior retained high heterozygosity, particularly in genomic regions without ROH. These results suggest that they present distinct genomic characteristics but also some level of gene flow with the continuous range. Our study provides key insights into the genomics of the southernmost range of caribou in Ontario, beginning to unravel the evolutionary history of these small, isolated caribou populations.
Funder
Genome Canada
Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada
W. Garfield Weston Foundation
Subject
Nature and Landscape Conservation,Ecology,Ecology, Evolution, Behavior and Systematics
Reference77 articles.
1. Andrews S.(2010).FastQC: A quality control tool for high throughput sequence data.http://www.bioinformatics.babraham.ac.uk/projects/fastqc
2. Caribou conservation and recovery in Ontario: Development and implementation of the Caribou conservation plan;Armstrong T. E. R.;Rangifer,2010
3. Bay R. Caplins S. Guerra V. &Armstrong M.(2021).Marine genomics UC Davis Department of Evolution and Ecology. Retrieved May 31 2023 fromhttps://baylab.github.io/MarineGenomics/week‐9‐‐population‐structure‐using‐ngsadmix.html#how‐do‐we‐know‐which‐k‐to‐pick
Cited by
1 articles.
订阅此论文施引文献
订阅此论文施引文献,注册后可以免费订阅5篇论文的施引文献,订阅后可以查看论文全部施引文献