Abstract
Deforestation and agricultural intensification have resulted in an alarming change in the global land cover over the past 300 years, posing a threat to species conservation. Dhole is a monophyletic, social canid and, being an endangered and highly forest-dependent species, is more prone to the loss of favorable habitat in the Anthropocene. We determined the genetic differentiation and demographic history of dhole across the tiger reserves of Maharashtra using the microsatellite data of 305 individuals. Simulation-based analyses revealed a 77–85% decline in the major dhole sub-populations. Protected areas have provided refuge to the historically declining dhole population resulting in clustering with strong genetic structure in the remnant dhole population. The historical population decline coincides with the extreme events in the landscape over the past 300 years. The study highlights the pattern of genetic differentiation and diversity of a highly forest-dependent species which can be associated with the loss of forest cover outside tiger reserves. It also warrants attention to develop conservation plans for the remnant surviving population of dholes in India.
Highlights
On the backdrop of rampant global industrialisation, urbanisation, and agricultural intensification, long-term survival of most wild animals and their habitats are severely challenged by drastic reduction in available habitats through fragmentation[1]
We investigated the patterns of genetic differentiation, diversity and demography in the dhole population across Maharashtra, a part of a larger landscape of Central India, having possibly the largest dhole population[29]
101 individual genotypes were used in a previous study[26], while 204 individual genotypes from three protected areas (TATR, Sahyadri Tiger Reserve (STR), Navegaon-Nagzira Tiger Reserve (NNTR)) were identified in this study
Summary
On the backdrop of rampant global industrialisation, urbanisation, and agricultural intensification, long-term survival of most wild animals and their habitats are severely challenged by drastic reduction in available habitats through fragmentation[1]. Asiatic wild dog (Cuon alpinus) or dhole is a typical example of a pack living, habitat-specialist, apex carnivore They are considered ‘Endangered’ by IUCN under criteria C2a(i) (small, declining and fragmented population with less than 2500 mature individuals) and are already at serious risk from habitat loss, prey depletion, disease transmission from domestic dog, human persecution and interspecific competition[14]. Throughout its distribution in India, this obligate forest-dwelling species is greatly affected by habitat loss (60% loss of its historical range)[17] mostly from agriculture intensification, urbanisation and developmental a ctivities[14], leading to continuous insularisation of these populations along with restricted dispersal events These fragmented populations may suffer from a reduction in genetic d iversity[18] and genetic drift at a longer temporal scale, leading to possible strong population structure.
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