Title
Conservation genomics of the endangered Burmese roofed turtle
Author(s)
Çilingir, F. Gözde;Rheindt, Frank E.;Garg, Kritika M.;Platt, Kalyar;Platt, Steven G.;Bickford, David P.
Published
2017
Publisher
Conservation Biology
Published Version DOI
https://doi.org/10.1111/cobi.12921
Abstract
The Burmese roofed turtle (Batagur trivittata) is one of the world's most endangered turtles. Only one wild population remains in Myanmar. Based on field observations, wild breeders are thought to number around a dozen. Combined in-situ and ex-situ conservation efforts for the species have raised >700 captive turtles over a decade predominantly from wild collected eggs. In one of the most comprehensive studies bridging genomic methodologies with active in-situ and ex-situ conservation efforts, we obtained ∼1500 unlinked genome-wide single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) from ∼40% of the turtles’ remaining global population. We found that individuals fall into five distinct genetic clusters, four of which represent full-sib families. We inferred a low effective population size (≤10) but did not detect signs of severe inbreeding, possibly because the population bottleneck has only happened recently. Based on genetic diversity, we identified two groups of 30 individuals from the captive pool that were subsequently reintroduced, leading to an increase in breeding success in the wild. Another 25 individuals, selected via the same criteria, were transferred to Singapore Zoo as an assurance colony. Our study demonstrates that the research-to-application gap in conservation can be bridged by successful agency-academic collaboration and through rigorous application of sound genomic methodologies. This article is protected by copyright. All rights reserved
Keywords
ddRAD-Seq;conservation genomics;Batagur trivittata;Myanmar;Burma

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PUB22752