Post-Bottleneck mtDNA diversity in a free-living population of European bison: Implications for Conservation Summary
It has been shown that there is very low genetic diversity in the European bison, which is a distinct contrast to the American bison. They have undergone a recent and severe genetic bottle-neck, meaning that there is close to no diversity in the current populations.
After a great loss in numbers, there were only 54 captive specimens left to restore the Bison population. Much of the genetic diversity was lost as well, resulting in the now present, low, genetic diversity. This lack of diversity negatively impacted reproduction and the disease susceptibility of the bison. Studies show that the variability between the allele loci has an extremely low variation between the populations. It has been expected that because of the founding females there are only three haplotypes remaining with the absence of mutations. Many males are affected by posthitis, a disease that affects the male reproductive organs. Because it is the only common disease among the bison, and that there were mutations found in the mtDNA of heteroplasmy haplotypes, it can be speculated that there is a connection between the two. Results of the investigation show that there were, indeed, only three distinct haplotypes, which were observed as different lengths of polyC and the number of cytosine’s present. Through the comparisons of European bison, American bison, and cattle, it became apparent that few polymorphic sites were present outside of the two highly variable regions (D-loop 15815-16306 bp, and D-loop positions 106-350). Strategies of conservation are being developed in the hopes of saving the bison population. An example of this would be restocking the population, but it would only be successful if restocked with the rare haplotypes of females versus one of the identified three. If a large restock took place without that screening of haplotypes, the frequencies of rare haplotypes would have the potential to drop lower than ever before. Another option would be to bring together the two
After a great loss in numbers, there were only 54 captive specimens left to restore the Bison population. Much of the genetic diversity was lost as well, resulting in the now present, low, genetic diversity. This lack of diversity negatively impacted reproduction and the disease susceptibility of the bison. Studies show that the variability between the allele loci has an extremely low variation between the populations. It has been expected that because of the founding females there are only three haplotypes remaining with the absence of mutations. Many males are affected by posthitis, a disease that affects the male reproductive organs. Because it is the only common disease among the bison, and that there were mutations found in the mtDNA of heteroplasmy haplotypes, it can be speculated that there is a connection between the two. Results of the investigation show that there were, indeed, only three distinct haplotypes, which were observed as different lengths of polyC and the number of cytosine’s present. Through the comparisons of European bison, American bison, and cattle, it became apparent that few polymorphic sites were present outside of the two highly variable regions (D-loop 15815-16306 bp, and D-loop positions 106-350). Strategies of conservation are being developed in the hopes of saving the bison population. An example of this would be restocking the population, but it would only be successful if restocked with the rare haplotypes of females versus one of the identified three. If a large restock took place without that screening of haplotypes, the frequencies of rare haplotypes would have the potential to drop lower than ever before. Another option would be to bring together the two