Efficient and cost-effective non-invasive population monitoring as a method to assess the genetic diversity of the last remaining population of Amur leopard (Panthera pardus orientalis) in the Russia Far East

Small populations of the endangered species are more vulnerable to extinction and hence require periodic genetic monitoring to establish and revisit the conservation strategies. The Amur leopard is critically endangered with about 100 individuals in the wild. In this study, we developed a simple and...

Full description

Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Published in:PloS one 2022-07, Vol.17 (7), p.e0270217
Main Authors: Cho, Sujoo, Pandey, Puneet, Hyun, Jee Yun, Marchenkova, Taisia, Vitkalova, Anna, Petrov, Timophey, Jeong, Daecheol, Lee, Jangmi, Kim, Dong Youn, Li, Ying, Darman, Yury, Min, Mi-Sook, Kim, Kyung Seok, Bardyuk, Victor, Lee, Hang
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Animals
Asia, Eastern
Biology and Life Sciences
Conservation
Cost effectiveness
Cost-Benefit Analysis
Cytochrome
Cytochrome b
Cytochromes
Deoxyribonucleic acid
DNA
DNA fingerprints
Endangered & extinct species
Endangered populations
Endangered Species
Feces
Female
Genetic diversity
Genetic Variation
Genotyping
Global positioning systems
GPS
Haplotypes
Identification
Male
Management
Mitochondrial DNA
Monitoring
Mutation
NADH
NADH-5 gene
National parks
Nicotinamide adenine dinucleotide
Panthera - genetics
Panthera pardus orientalis
Point mutation
Population
Population ecology
Protection and preservation
Research and Analysis Methods
Species extinction
Threatened species
Wildcats
Wildlife conservation
Citations: Items that this one cites
Items that cite this one
Online Access:Get full text
Tags: Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
Description
Summary:Small populations of the endangered species are more vulnerable to extinction and hence require periodic genetic monitoring to establish and revisit the conservation strategies. The Amur leopard is critically endangered with about 100 individuals in the wild. In this study, we developed a simple and cost-effective noninvasive genetic monitoring protocol for Amur leopards. Also, we investigated the impact of fecal sample's age, storage, and collection season on microsatellite genotyping success and data quality. We identified 89 leopard scats out of the 342 fecal samples collected from Land of the Leopard between 2014-2019. Microsatellite genotyping using 12 markers optimized in 3 multiplex PCR reactions reveals presence of at least 24 leopard individuals (18 males and 6 females). There was a significant difference in the success rate of genotyping depending on the time from feces deposition to collection (p = 0.014, Fisher's exact test), with better genotyping success for samples having
ISSN:1932-6203
1932-6203
DOI:10.1371/journal.pone.0270217