Revealing the consequences of trophy hunting on the maintenance of genetic variation

R RODRIGUEZ MUÑOZ; C. RODRIGUEZ DEL VALLE; BAÑUELOS MARÍA JOSÉ; MIROL PATRICIA

CONSERVATION GENETICS

SPRINGER

Lugar: Berlin; Año: 2015

1566-0621

Demographic models accounting for operational sex ratio show that malenumbers can have a substantial influence on the dynamics of wildpopulations. We studied this issue on a polygynous forest bird, by assessingthe effects of a reduction in the number of breeding males, i.e. an increasedsex ratio associated to male-biased trophy hunting, on the genetics of thepopulation. We based our assessment in the comparison of the dynamics ofneutral markers transmitted by both parents (microsatellites) vs. markerstransmitted only by females (mitochondrial DNA - mtDNA). Parallel to fielddata analysis, we ran computer simulations to explore how different levels ofsex ratio and two other important demographic factors, population size andconnectivity, influence the dynamics of genetic variation of microsatellites andmtDNA. We found evidence of a genetic bottleneck and low genetic variabilityaffecting microsatellites but not mtDNA early in our study period, when trophyhunting was more intense. This was followed by a decline in mtDNA variationaround 10-20 years later. Simulations suggested that changes in geneticvariation associated to high sex ratio had the closest similarity to thoseobserved at the beginning of our study, whereas a combination of reducedsize and migration rate better resembled the patterns found later. We showthat by increasing sex ratio, trophy hunting can have a significant impact onthe dynamics of a population, and support the need to incorporate operationalsex ratio into decision making for the management and conservation ofexploited populations.