Abstract
Rhesus macaques are raised in almost every Chinese zoo due to their likeability and ease in feeding; however, little is yet known about the genetic diversity of rhesus macaques in captivity. In this study, a 475-base pair nucleotide sequence of the mitochondrial DNA control region was obtained from the fecal DNA of 210 rhesus macaque individuals in captivity. A total of 69 haplotypes were defined, 51 of which (73.9%) were newly identified. Of all haplotypes, seven were shared between two zoos, and 62 haplotypes (89.8%) appeared only in a specific zoo, indicating a low rate of animal exchange between Chinese zoos. Moreover, there was a relatively high level of genetic diversity among the rhesus macaques (Hd = 0.0623 ± 0.0009, Pi = 0.979 ± 0.003, K = 28.974). Phylogenetic analysis demonstrated that all haplotypes were clearly clustered into two major haplogroups—Clade A (southeastern China) and Clade B (southwestern China)—and each major clade contained several small sub-haplogroups. The haplotypes of rhesus macaques from the same zoo were not clustered together for the most part, but scattered among several subclades on the phylogenetic tree. This indicates that the rhesus macaques in most Chinese zoos may originat from a diverse collection of geographical areas. Our results demonstrate that zoos play an important role in the conservation of the genetic diversity of rhesus macaques, as well as provide useful information on the genetic management of captive rhesus macaques.
Highlights
Rhesus macaques (Macaca mulatta) belong to the old-world monkey family (Cercopithecoidea, Cercopithecinae), and their genetic differentiation with humans is dated back to 25 million years ago (Kumar & Hedges, 1998; Perry et al, 2012)
Genetic diversity of the 11 rhesus macaque populations To explore the genetic diversity between the macaques at the 11 zoos, we calculated the haplotype diversity (Hd), Pi, and the average number of nucleotide difference (K) for both the entire studied population and each zoo population (Table 1)
Phylogenetic analysis Phylogenetic trees were constructed using Bayesian inference (BI), neighbor-joining distance (NJ), ML, and MP methods based on the 69 captive mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) haplotypes and 15 corresponding wild-origin sequences
Summary
Rhesus macaques (Macaca mulatta) belong to the old-world monkey family (Cercopithecoidea, Cercopithecinae), and their genetic differentiation with humans is dated back to 25 million years ago (Kumar & Hedges, 1998; Perry et al, 2012). They are distributed in a broad geographical region that extends from Afghanistan in the west to the coast of the East China Sea in the east (Gibbs et al, 2007; Groves, 1985), and over. Rhesus macaque populations have declined in number dramatically due to human-driven deforestation and fragmentation of secondary forests This species has been listed on the CITES Appendix II, as well as defined as a Category II species in the Chinese Wildlife Protection Act (Xu et al, 2010b). There have been very few reports on the genetic diversity of Chinese rhesus macaques kept in zoos
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