DNA from the Past Informs Ex Situ Conservation for the Future: An “Extinct” Species of Galápagos Tortoise Identified in Captivity
Michael A. Russello1*, Nikos Poulakakis2, James P. Gibbs3,Washington Tapia4, Edgar Benavides5, Jeffrey R. Powell5,Adalgisa Caccone5
Methodology/Findings
We reanalyzed mitochondrial DNA control region haplotypes and microsatellite genotypes of 156 captive individuals using an expanded reference database that included all extant Galápagos tortoise species as well as the extinct species from Floreana. Nine individuals (six females and three males) exhibited strong signatures of Floreana ancestry and a high probability of assignment to C. elephantopus as detected by Bayesian assignment and clustering analyses of empirical and simulated data. One male with high assignment probability to C. elephantopus based on microsatellite genotypic data also possessed a “Floreana-like” mitochondrial DNA haplotype.
Significance
Historical DNA analysis of museum specimens has provided critical spatial and temporal components to ecological, evolutionary, taxonomic and conservation-related research, but rarely has it informed ex situ species recovery efforts. Here, the availability of population-level genotypic data from the extinct C. elephantopus enabled the identification of nine Galápagos tortoise individuals of substantial conservation value that were previously misassigned to extant species of varying conservation status. As all captive individuals of C. elephantopus ancestry currently reside at a centralized breeding facility on Santa Cruz, these findings permit breeding efforts to commence in support of the reestablishment of this extinct species to its native range.
Citation:Russello MA, Poulakakis N, Gibbs JP, Tapia W, Benavides E, et al. (2010) DNA from the Past Informs Ex Situ Conservation for the Future: An “Extinct” Species of Galápagos Tortoise Identified in Captivity. PLoS ONE 5(1): e8683. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0008683
Editor:Michael Knapp, University of Otago, New Zealand
Received: November 11, 2009; Accepted: December 20, 2009; Published: January 13, 2010
Copyright: © 2010 Russello et al. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited. Funding: Funding was provided by the Paul and Bay Foundation, Turtle Conservation Fund, National Geographic Society, and Yale Institute for Biospheric Studies (YIBS) Ecosave funds to AC. The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.
Competing interests: The authors have declared that no competing interests exist.
Editor:Michael Knapp, University of Otago, New Zealand
Received: November 11, 2009; Accepted: December 20, 2009; Published: January 13, 2010
Copyright: © 2010 Russello et al. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited. Funding: Funding was provided by the Paul and Bay Foundation, Turtle Conservation Fund, National Geographic Society, and Yale Institute for Biospheric Studies (YIBS) Ecosave funds to AC. The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.
Competing interests: The authors have declared that no competing interests exist.
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