Preliminary Research On Conservation Genetics Of Two Chinese Goral Populations Based On Fecal DNA

Chinese goral(Naemorhedus caudatus) is a unique species in Northeast Asia, which is mainly distributed in northeast and southwest in China. Due to the aggravation of human activities, habitat fragmentation and habitat loss, Chinese goral is categorized as a Grade Two State Key Protected Wildlife in China and a Near Threatened species by the IUCN Red List, and is listed in the Appendix I by CITES. In this paper, the methods of extracting DNA from noninvasive fecal samples and the molecular markers (mtDNA, microsatellites and sex gene) were used for determining applicability in the population conservation genetic research of Chinese goral in Beijing Songshan and Inner Mongolia Saihanwula National Nature Reserve. The main research results are summarized as follows.1) Seventy-six Naemorhedus caudatus individuals were identified in 372 fecal samples suspected for Chinese goral by using the molecular markers (mtDNA, microsatellites and sex gene). Beijing Songshan and Inner Mongolia Saihanwula were identified 15 (9 female and 6 males) and 61 (37 female and 24 males) gorals, respectively.2) For the comparable 227 bp mtDNA control region sequence,13 variable nucleotide sites defined 8 haplotypes. Beijing Songshan and Inner Mongolia Saihanwula detected 3 and 5 haplotypes, respectively. The average genetics distances among haplotypes were 0.0149 and 0.0125, the haplotype diversitys were 0.705 and 0.787, and the nucleotide diversity were 0.0097 and 0.0107, relatively. Therefore, compaired with some species of experienced serious bottlenecks, this result indicates that a relatively moderate genetic diversity for the two Chinese goral populations at mtDNA gene level.3) Ten microsatellite loci amplified were detected with 45 alleles. Genetic diversity analysis indicated that the average number of allele of microsatellite loci of the Inner Mongolia Saihanwula goral population was 3.700, the average effective number of allele was 3.400, the average observed heterozygosity was 0.630, the average expected heterozygosity was 0.691 and the average polymorphism information content was 0.629, while these values for Beijing Songshan goral population were 3.300,2.944,0.607,0.650 and 0.578, respectively. The result was similar to the genetic diversity on mitochondrial DNA gene level, which was a relatively moderate genetic diversity for the two goral populations at microsatellite DNA gene level.4) The genetic differentiation coefficient of mtDNA and microsatellites DNA molecular markers showed that there was a significant level of genetic differentiation between the two goral populations. According to the results that NJ phylogenetic tree generated from mitochondrial DNA haplotype data, UPGMA phylogenetic tree constructed from microsatellite data and Bayesian clustering analysis model constructed from STRUCTUR software, it was showed that the two populations were differentiated into two large branches. Based on the above data, Inner Mongolia Saihanwula and Beijing Songshan Chinese goral populations were divided into two evolutionary significant units and protection management units.