Abstract
The black rhinoceros is again on the verge of extinction due to unsustainable poaching in its native range. Despite a wide historic distribution, the black rhinoceros was traditionally thought of as depauperate in genetic variation, and with very little known about its evolutionary history. This knowledge gap has hampered conservation efforts because hunting has dramatically reduced the species’ once continuous distribution, leaving five surviving gene pools of unknown genetic affinity. Here we examined the range-wide genetic structure of historic and modern populations using the largest and most geographically representative sample of black rhinoceroses ever assembled. Using both mitochondrial and nuclear datasets, we described a staggering loss of 69% of the species’ mitochondrial genetic variation, including the most ancestral lineages that are now absent from modern populations. Genetically unique populations in countries such as Nigeria, Cameroon, Chad, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Somalia, Mozambique, Malawi and Angola no longer exist. We found that the historic range of the West African subspecies (D. b. longipes), declared extinct in 2011, extends into southern Kenya, where a handful of individuals survive in the Masai Mara. We also identify conservation units that will help maintain evolutionary potential. Our results suggest a complete re-evaluation of current conservation management paradigms for the black rhinoceros.
Highlights
The black rhinoceros is again on the verge of extinction due to unsustainable poaching in its native range
Despite a historic range that included much of sub-Saharan Africa (Fig. 1b), the black rhinoceros survives in only five countries: South Africa, Namibia, Kenya, Zimbabwe and Tanzania
This study emphasises the value of historical data in quantifying losses in genetic diversity and inferring effective population size changes across the range of a widely distributed species
Summary
The black rhinoceros is again on the verge of extinction due to unsustainable poaching in its native range. Despite a wide historic distribution, the black rhinoceros was traditionally thought of as depauperate in genetic variation, and with very little known about its evolutionary history. We examined the range-wide genetic structure of historic and modern populations using the largest and most geographically representative sample of black rhinoceroses ever assembled. Using both mitochondrial and nuclear datasets, we described a staggering loss of 69% of the species’. Despite a historic range that included much of sub-Saharan Africa (Fig. 1b), the black rhinoceros survives in only five countries: South Africa, Namibia, Kenya, Zimbabwe and Tanzania (ranked by total population size). At the 16th meeting of the Conference of Parties to the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES 2013)[2], it was reported that poaching of black and white rhinoceroses in South Africa had increased from
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