Subspecies of the Central American Squirrel Monkey ( Saimiri oerstedii ) as Units for Conservation
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Subspecies of the Central American Squirrel Monkey (Saimiri oerstedii) as Units for Conservation Mary E. Blair & Gustavo A. Gutierrez-Espeleta & Don J. Melnick
Received: 3 August 2012 / Accepted: 27 October 2012 / Published online: 16 December 2012 # Springer Science+Business Media New York 2012
Abstract The accurate diagnosis of conservation units now typically includes recognition of genetic diversity and unique evolutionary lineages and is necessary to inform the conservation management of endangered species. We evaluated whether the two currently recognized subspecies of the endangered Central American squirrel monkey (Saimiri oerstedii) in Costa Rica are evolutionarily significant units (ESUs) that should be managed separately in conservation efforts. We used previously published sequences of 50 individuals of Saimiri oerstedii for 880 bp of the mtDNA d-loop and genotypes of 244 individuals for 16 microsatellites and conducted novel analyses to characterize genetic differentiation between subspecies of Saimiri oerstedii. We measured sequence differentiation and inferred an intraspecific molecular phylogeny and a haplotype network, and found consistent results supporting statistically significant divergence and reciprocal monophyly between subspecies. A population aggregation analysis also supported Saimiri oerstedii citrinellus and S. o. oerstedii as diagnosably distinct units. These results confirm previous genetic studies with smaller sample sizes and are consistent with other factors including differences in pelage and morphology and divergence at nuclear markers. Conservation managers should manage these subspecies separately to prevent the loss of genetic diversity via artificially induced outbreeding. High levels of genetic M. E. Blair : D. J. Melnick Department of Ecology, Evolution and Environmental Biology, Columbia University, New York, NY 10027, USA M. E. Blair (*) Center for Biodiversity and Conservation, American Museum of Natural History, Central Park West at 79th St, New York, NY 10024, USA e-mail: [email protected] M. E. Blair : D. J. Melnick New York Consortium in Evolutionary Primatology, New York, NY, USA G. A. Gutierrez-Espeleta Escuela de Biología, Universidad de Costa Rica, San Jose, Costa Rica
Subspecies of Saimiri oerstedii as Conservation Units
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diversity may buffer populations against outside extinction pressures, to which Saimiri oerstedii are vulnerable because of their dwindling habitat and small population size. Keywords Cebidae . Evolutionarily significant units (ESUs) . Microsatellite . mtDNA control region . Platyrrhini
Introduction The accurate diagnosis of conservation units in nature is necessary to inform the conservation management of endangered species, particularly for threat analyses and the definition of conservation targets (Mace 2004). With the recent expansion of conservation genetics (DeSalle and Amato 2004), the diagnosis of conservation units now typically includes recognition of genetic diversity and, specifically, unique evolutionary lineages or evolution
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