Abstract
The Nubian ibex (Capra nubiana) is patchily distributed across parts of Africa and Arabia. In Oman, it is one of the few free-ranging wild mammals found in the central and southern regions. Its population is declining due to habitat degradation, human expansion, poaching and fragmentation. Here, we investigated the population's genetic diversity using mitochondrial DNA (D-loop 186 bp and cytochrome b 487 bp). We found that the Nubian ibex in the southern region of Oman was more diverse (D-loop HD; 0.838) compared with the central region (0.511) and gene flow between them was restricted. We compared the genetic profiles of wild Nubian ibex from Oman with captive ibex. A Bayesian phylogenetic tree showed that wild Nubian ibex form a distinct clade independent from captive animals. This divergence was supported by high mean distances (D-loop 0.126, cytochrome b 0.0528) and high FST statistics (D-loop 0.725, cytochrome b 0.968). These results indicate that captive ibex are highly unlikely to have originated from the wild population in Oman and the considerable divergence suggests that the wild population in Oman should be treated as a distinct taxonomic unit. Further nuclear genetic work will be required to fully elucidate the degree of global taxonomic divergence of Nubian ibex populations.
Highlights
The Capra genus is distributed widely in the three continents of Europe, Africa and Asia, and its range extends from the cooler areas of the Alpine mountains to the hot hyper-arid desert of Arabia [1]
The geographical distribution of the haplotypes of the wild Nubian ibex in Oman is illustrated in figure 2
Based on the results of mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) of 186 bp D-loop and 487 bp cytochrome b sequences, we found that the populations in the southern region (Shalim and Dhofar) are genetically more diverse than the central region (WWR)
Summary
The Capra (or goat) genus is distributed widely in the three continents of Europe, Africa and Asia, and its range extends from the cooler areas of the Alpine mountains to the hot hyper-arid desert of Arabia [1]. Capra species are divided into three groups: markhor, ibex and true goats [3]. Heptner et al [4] divided the ibex into seven species: Spanish ibex (C. pyrenaica), Alpine ibex (C. ibex), Dagestan tur (C. cylindricornis), Caucasian ibex (C. caucasica), Siberian ibex (C. sibirica), Nubian ibex (C. nubiana) and Walie ibex (C. walie). The more widely accepted classification, which is used by the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN), is that the Capra consists of nine species: the seven ibex, a single species of markhor (C. falconeri) and wild goat (C. aegagrus) (see electronic supplementary material, S1). The distribution of the Nubian ibex extends from northeast Africa through the Middle East and into the Arabian Peninsula [8] (figure 1b)
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