Category Archives: genetics

Journal of Mammalogy

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journal of mammalogy 2-14Here are the articles of interest in the most recent issue of the Journal of Mammalogy:

If you are in javalina country, learn more about where to find them, based on research in the southern San Andres Mountains, New Mexico

If you have an interest in Great Plains pocket mice, their taxonomy may be more confusing that you think.

If you work at high elevation, it may interest you that pikas may survive by eating things they usually don’t.

How will climate change effect the ecology of the Great Plains? Voles are strongly affected by snow cover, otherwise, it looks like other factors are more important to rodent survival.

If you are concerned with invasive species, particularly honeysuckle, white-footed mice will eat just about any native species before they go for the fruits of an invasive honeysuckle species.

If you work with Indiana bats: they congregate in larger numbers during colder winters, possibly tipped off by late summer weather patterns.

If you work with brown bears: even when they are able to eat an all-protein diet, they will select foods that keep the protein balance in line with the percentage found in other omnivores.

Or, read the entire issue. A subscription or fee is required to get beyond the abstracts.

Georgia Nongame Annual Report

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georgia license plateThe Georgia Department of Natural Resources’ Nongame Conservation Section recently released its 2013 annual report. It released two versions: a 40-page full report and a six-page summary.

Surveys were the main research done in 2013, including surveys of wood stork nests, bald eagle nests, swallow-tailed kite nests and roosts, gopher tortoises, indigo snakes, and eastern hellbenders. They also did a study of the the trapping effort needed to accurately judge bog turtle populations.

They released captive-bred striped newts, reared gopher frog eggs and released the young, spent a lot of time on red-cockaded woodpecker conservation, and hired a new freshwater mussel biologist.

The big news, though, was lack of funding from special nongame program license plates. A new revenue-sharing method introduced in the last few years has meant a cut in funding for the department from the plates.

You can find links to both versions of the report here.

For Better Genetics, Use Habitat Clusters

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by Louise HuntHabitat clusters can improve the genetics of rare species, such as the Florida scrub jay, says a recent paper in Biology Letters.

The research focused on the genetics and available habitat for the Florida scrub jay, but the findings are applicable to other rare species, the paper says.

“We present a detailed case study of one highly fragmented, endangered species (Florida Scrub-Jay) showing the importance of keeping habitat gaps as narrow as possible, in order to maintain gene flow among populations,” says John Fitzpatrick, director of Cornell Lab of Ornithology and one of the authors of the paper. “Habitat gaps greater than a few kilometers separating two populations reduce movement of jays across them sufficiently to cause genetic isolation of the two populations. This highlights the importance of maintaining or restoring habitat ‘stepping stones.'”

Read the paper here — with subscription or fee.
Read the Cornell Lab of Ornithology press release here.
Read the Cornell Lab of Ornithology blog on the topic here.
Read the Volusia County (Florida) web page about the research, while it was in progress, here.

Photo: Florida scrub jay by Louise Hunt, courtesy of the Cornell Lab of Ornithology

Columbia Basin Pygmy Rabbit’s Last Stand

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Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife is making what may be a final attempt to restore the Columbia Basin pygmy rabbit to its native habitat. A 2007 attempt to reintroduce zoo-bred rabbits into the wild ended in most of the naive rabbits being eaten by predators.

This time the rabbits will be released into a fenced enclosure, with gradual exposure to predators through smaller enclosures with tunnels to the outside. The rabbits are not pure-bred Columbia Basin pygmies, but have been bred with pygmy rabbits from Idaho and Oregon, which are not endangered. In fact, most other pygmy rabbits in the West thrive.

Read more in this article in the Idaho Statesman. An InsideScience report on the restoration is available via US News and World Report. Or read the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife press release. Read the US Fish & Wildlife Service’s species profile (well technically, a “distinct population segment” profile) here.

Photo: A pygmy rabbit of unknown distinct population segment, likely from Idaho, courtesy of the US Fish & Wildlife Service. Photo Credit: R. Dixon (IDFG) and H. Ulmschneider (BLM)

Isolated populations further endanger NE cottontail

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Photo: US Fish & Wildlife

Genetic analysis of the remaining New England cottontail populations show that five population clusters of rabbits are not mingling, which makes the survival of some of the populations even less likely than was already thought.

The University of New Hampshire based team of researchers found that New England cottontail rabbits in southern Maine, and central and southeastern New Hampshire formed one population cluster; Cape Cod, Massachusetts was home to another cluster; parts of eastern Connecticut and Rhode Island were home to a third cluster; and western Connecticut, southeastern New York and southwestern Massachusetts had a fourth cluster. One isolated population in eastern Connecticut was home to the fifth cluster, which was genetically isolated, even from the two other population clusters nearby.

The researchers say that immediate conservation efforts should focus on shoring up New England cottontail populations in Maine, New Hampshire, and on Cape Cod. Eventually, they say, the connectivity between the populations needs to be restored.

The New England cottontail is not a federally endangered species. It was found “warranted by precluded,” by the US Fish and Wildlife Service. Translated into English, that means they found that it probably deserves protection, but they just don’t have the resources to do it.

Read the article in the journal Conservation Genetics, here.

For more on the New England cottontail, and why it looks just like an eastern cottontail, but isn’t one, read more in the Outside Story nature column.

Invasive plants change, but don’t master all conditions

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Invasive plant species do change more in response to environmental conditions than other plant species, a team of Australian researchers has found. This ability to change has long been considered a key factor in what makes invasive species, well, invasive. In their paper in Ecology Letters, the research team analyzed the published literature on 75 pairs of similar plants, where one of the pair was a known invasive, and the other a non-invasive species. They were able to confirm that the invasive plants had greater phenotypic plasticity.

They also found, however, that the ability to change didn’t necessarily help the invasive plants when times got tough. They found that the non-invasive plants fared better when there was a low or average amount of resources, such as light, nutrients, or water. They point out that invasive species are jacks of all trades, or at least all environmental conditions, but masters of only some.

They note in a very brief section that while the increase of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere generated by human activity favors invasive species, the stressful environmental conditions (such as drought) that the accompanying climate change brings can favor non-invasive species.

The paper in Ecology Letters is open access, and is available here.