‘Ghost’ alleles of the Mauritius kestrel (original) (raw)

Conservation biology

Nature volume 403, page 616 (2000) Cite this article

Abstract

The population of Mauritius kestrels is thought to have recovered from a single wild breeding pair in 19741, when its prospects were considered to be hopeless, to over 200 pairs today2. Here we evaluate the loss of genetic variation that resulted from this bottleneck by typing 12 microsatellite DNA loci in museum skins up to 170 years old and from modern kestrels. We find that ancestral variation was remarkably high and comparable to continental kestrel species. This shows that the unexpected resilience of the population could not have been due either to benefits contributed by an undetected remnant population or to reduction of the inbreeding genetic load by a history of small population size3.

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Figure 1: The genetic diversity of the ancestral population of Mauritius kestrels is similar to those of continental populations.

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Author notes

  1. Michael W. Bruford
    Present address: Cardiff School of Biosciences, Cardiff University, Cathays Park, Cardiff, CF1 3TL, UK

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Institute of Zoology, Zoological Society of London, Regents Park, London, NW1 4RY, UK
    Jim J. Groombridge
  2. Mauritius Wildlife Foundation, Black River, Mauritius
    Carl G. Jones & Michael W. Bruford
  3. School of Biological Sciences, Queen Mary & Westfield College, London, E1 4NS, UK
    Richard A. Nichols

Authors

  1. Jim J. Groombridge
  2. Carl G. Jones
  3. Michael W. Bruford
  4. Richard A. Nichols

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Groombridge, J., Jones, C., Bruford, M. et al. ‘Ghost’ alleles of the Mauritius kestrel.Nature 403, 616 (2000). https://doi.org/10.1038/35001148

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