The South China Tiger Conservation Genetics Research

There are eight generally accepted tiger subspecies in the world, commonly classified by their geographic distribution: the Chinese (the South China tiger, P. t. amoyensis), Amur (P. t. altaica), Indochinese (P. t. corbetti), Bengali (P. t. tigris), Sumatran (P. t. sumatrae), Bali (P. t. balica), Javan (P. t. sondaica), and Caspian {P. t. virgata) tigers. Of these, the South China tiger is endemic to China and its distribution once extended 2000 km from east to west, and 1500 km from south to north. The Chinese subspecies is centrally located among the tiger subspecies, and was bordered on the northeast by the distribution range of the Amur tiger, and in the southwest by that of the Indochinese, Bengal and Sumatran tigers. This subspecies is currently on the brink of extinction as a result of deforestation, human settlement encroachment into mountainous regions, and poaching during the 1950-1960's.The current captive population of the South China tiger is descended from six individuals representing two genetically distinct strains. One male and two females taken from the wild in Guizhou province were determined to be of Qian descent. An additional female discovered from the wild in Fujian province, and one female and one male from the wild in Guizhou province were of Hu descent. The two strains were first interbred and produced many offspring in the mid 1980s. Today the captive population faces the threats of inbreeding, loss of genetic diversity, population decline, decreased quality, and the critical state of the Mace-Lancle standard. Despite these problems, historical hybridization events between the different tiger subspecies may have positively impacted the genomic diversity of the population, due to the introduction of exogenous genes into the population.The molecular marker techniques have been implemented to decipher the genetic condition of the South China tiger in this study. The goals were to: 1) Quantify the genetic structure of the captive population; 2) Identify paternity of individuals and determine the recent pedigree, in order to develop an appropriate captive breeding plan; 3) Assess the level of genetic variation within the population. The achievement of these goals will allow us to optimize the breeding potential and genetic management, and improve the overall genetic health of the population.In detail:1. The blood, hair, feces, and biopsy were collected from 51 South China tigers and then DNA...