CONICET | Buscador de Institutos y Recursos Humanos

Genetic isolationdue to habitat fragmentation and the consequent loss of landscape connectivityis considered a major threat to wildlife conservation, especially forwide-ranging carnivores, such as puma. In this work we investigated pumagenetic diversity and population structure in Argentina, increasingly affectedby habitat loss, using 40 puma samples including scats, dead animals and museumspecimens. We analyzed a set of 30 microsatellite loci displaying between 3 and13 alleles. Across all samples and 29 loci (missing value<5%), the averageobserved heterozygosity was Ho=0.61, average expected heterozygosity was He=0.70and average number of alleles per locus was Na=5.83. Population structure analysisof 22 samples revealed two distinct genetic subdivisions in central-southernArgentina corresponding to Buenos Aires and Chubut Provinces. This preliminary resultsuggests the potential presence of a genetically structured population betweentwo areas only 343 km apart. Future work will include the analyses of acomprehensive dataset throughout almost the entire country combining recent andhistorical samples to confirm the observed population structure and estimategenetic diversity and gene flow across populations. Moreover, it will allow inferenceson possible demographic events of puma population in Argentina and on thepresence of barriers to puma dispersion. Maintaining landscape connectivity maybe necessary for the conservation of viable puma populations, mostly for aspecies living in a fragmented landscape and under heavy hunting pressure.

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