Genetic Variability of Reintroduced California Bighorn Sheep in Oregon

Abstract

Of the approximately 2,500 California bighorn sheep (Ovis canadensis californiana) in Oregon, USA, the majority descend from a single transplant of 20 animals from British Columbia, Canada, in 1954. Recently, several populations have experienced poor recruitment, raising concerns that populations may be experiencing inbreeding depression resulting from a genetic bottleneck. We sampled 117 animals from 5 populations in Oregon and 1 population in Nevada to determine genetic variability within and among populations. We found that Oregon populations had fewer mean alleles per locus (2.2–2.4), lower heterozygosity (0.28–0.36), and higher inbreeding potential than animals from Nevada (3.8 alleles/locus, H = 0.53). These results now provide the baseline for rigorous ongoing evaluation of changes to allelic variability, inbreeding potential, variation among populations, and their effects on population demographics for Oregon's California bighorn sheep program. We suggest that evaluation of genetic variability in other source and recipient populations should be used to further understand how and when genetic management can be used for bighorn sheep conservation and management.

Genetic Variation and Phylogeographic Analysis of Native Chicken Populations in Myanmar and Thailand

“…This occurrence was consistent with our previous report for the Indonesian native chickens (Riztyan et al, 2011). In commercial lines, the observed heterozygosity were slightly greater, which was in agreement with the result obtained by Whittaker et al (2004) and Lawson et al (2007) for the commercial sheep and domestic sheep, and Zanetti et al (2010) for the commercial chicken (brown layer) population and Italian breeds of chickens, where heterozygosity were greater than their wild relatives. They suggested that selective breeding are generally successful in maintaining diversity.…”

Genetic structure of European sheep breeds

“…Despite significant heterozygote deficit, levels of heterozygosity are relatively high in commercially managed breeds compared to the primitive, feral or wild sheep such as the Californian bighorn sheep, where H o ¼ 0.28-0.36 (Whittaker et al, 2004). A similar situation is found in domestic goats, which have substantially higher heterozygosity than their wild relatives (Saitbekova et al, 1999).…”

Wildlife translocation: the conservation implications of pathogen exposure and genetic heterozygosity

“…Many of these loci have been examined in previous publications [6,9,10], and we have used them to examine heterozygosity in different populations of bighorn sheep across their range in North America (unpublished). Briefly, using fluorescently labeled microsatellite primers, microsatellites present in genomic DNA were amplified by PCR (polymerase chain reaction).…”