The Individual Identity, Parentage Analysis And Home Range Determination Of Wapiti Based On Faeces Molecular Biology

Wapiti is a kind of protected animal of the national gradeâ…¡, and is the important economic deer species at the same time. The species play an important ecological role in the temperate forest ecosystems of China. In recent years, as a result of the man-made damagement to this species'living environment is more serious, the quantity of wapiti decreased rapidly. So how to study and protect the existing population become the focus of future research.This article analysis individual identity, sex, parentage, home range and the migration among groups based on faeces DNA of Wapiti using microsatellite DNA. This study will provide a basis for protecting this species.We collected 176 faeces samples of wapiti in Wandashan Mountains from January to March,2009. The DNA extraction from 176 faeces successed by the QIAamp DNA Stool Mini Kit.4 higy polymorphism loci were chosen from 18 loci. Using these loci and 5 other loci which were chosen before to amplify the DNA. The results shows that 176 faeces are from 37 different wapiti individuals, and 23 are female,14 are male, the sex ratio is 1.00:0.61.9 parentage groups of wapiti were obtained through the parentage analysis in Cervus 3.0, and 1 of them was inbreeding. We got 8 subpopulations also combing the field survey, A and D were female and male mixed subpopulations, B,C and E were female subpopulations, and F,G and H were male subpopulations. By means of Arcview GIS we calculated the area of home range of 16 individuals. The female's average area was 116.98 hm2, male's was 329.08 hm2, and male's average area was double female's average area. The area of groups was between 22.62hm2 and 383.28hm2. The migration between groups and individuals was frequent, especially female.