Welcome

As rapid eco­nomic expan­sion con­tin­ues to shape the Asian land­scape on which many species depend, time is run­ning out for con­ser­va­tion­ists aim­ing to save wildlife such as tigers and leop­ards.

Sci­en­tists at the Smith­son­ian Con­ser­va­tion Biol­ogy Insti­tute (SCBI) have used genetic analy­sis to find that the nat­ural for­est cor­ri­dors in India are essen­tial to ensur­ing a future for these species. Accord­ing to two stud­ies recently pub­lished in two papers, these cor­ri­dors are suc­cess­fully con­nect­ing pop­u­la­tions of tigers and leop­ards to ensure genetic diver­sity and gene flow. The results of the study that focused on tigers were pub­lished online Novem­ber 29 in Ecol­ogy and Evo­lu­tion, and the results from the study that tracked leop­ards were pub­lished online Decem­ber 31 in Diver­sity and Dis­tri­b­u­tions.

“These habi­tats and cor­ri­dors in India are threat­ened by infra­struc­tural devel­op­ments and need to be con­served if we want to save these species for future gen­er­a­tions.”

Habi­tat frag­men­ta­tion can divide pop­u­la­tions of species into iso­lated groups, which can lead to inbreed­ing and a genetic bot­tle­neck that affects the long-​term via­bil­ity of the pop­u­la­tion. Sci­en­tists can deter­mine the scope of such iso­la­tion by analysing the extent to which groups of the same species from one range have become genet­i­cally dis­tinct. The authors of the two papers used fecal sam­ples to analyse the genet­ics of tiger and leop­ard pop­u­la­tions in four reserves in cen­tral India: Sat­pura, Mel­ghat, Pench and Kanha. The Kanha and Pench reserves and the Sat­pura and Mel­ghat reserves are con­nected via for­est cor­ri­dors that tigers, leop­ards, humans and cat­tle share.

The researchers found that both tiger and leop­ard pop­u­la­tions in the reserves had main­tained a high level of genetic diver­sity. Nei­ther tigers nor leop­ards were genet­i­cally dis­tinct, with one excep­tion among the leop­ards, which the sci­en­tists hope to explain with addi­tional research. The cor­ri­dors appear to allow indi­vid­u­als to move between reserves, facil­i­tat­ing genetic exchange.

How­ever, the pro­lif­er­a­tion of roads, rail lines, min­ing, urban­i­sa­tion and other forms of devel­op­ment through the cor­ri­dors jeop­ar­dise these species’ abil­ity to move between reserves. Sev­eral coal mines have been pro­posed in the for­est cor­ri­dor between the Sat­pura and Pench tiger reserves, as has the widen­ing of a national high­way (NH-​7) and a broad-​gauge rail­way line that cut across the cor­ri­dor between the Kanha and Pench tiger reserves.

“By look­ing at two species, we were really able to illus­trate the func­tion­al­ity of these cor­ri­dors,” said Trishna Dutta, SCBI vis­it­ing stu­dent and lead author of the Diver­sity and Dis­tri­b­u­tions paper. “Con­serv­ing a whole land­scape, rather than piece­meal pro­tected areas, would ensure a bet­ter chance for the long-​term per­sis­tence of these and other species.”

The Smith­son­ian Con­ser­va­tion Biol­ogy Insti­tute plays a key role in the Smithsonian’s global efforts to under­stand and con­serve species and train future gen­er­a­tions of con­ser­va­tion­ists. Head­quar­tered in Front Royal, Va., SCBI facil­i­tates and pro­motes research pro­grams based at Front Royal, the National Zoo in Wash­ing­ton, D.C., and at field research sta­tions and train­ing sites world­wide.


The above news item is reprinted from mate­ri­als avail­able at Sci­ence­Blog. Orig­i­nal text may be edited for con­tent and length.
(Source: Sci­ence­Blog, 14.01.2013)