Abstract
Polycrylamide gel electrophoresis was used to analyse tranferrrin variation in caribou populations from Manitoba, Ontario, Québec/Labrador, and from Baffin Island, Northwest Territories in eastern Canada. The transferrin allele frequencies in these populations were compared with those previously reported for Canadian barren-ground caribou, Rangifer tarandus groenlandicus, Alaska caribou, R.t. grand, Peary caribou, R.t. pearyi, Svalbard reindeer, R.t. pla-tyrhynchus, and Eurasian tundra reindeer, R.t. tarandus. A total of twenty different alleles was detected in the analysed material, considerable genetic heterogeneity being detected among regions. Three alleles that were relatively common in caribou from Ontario, Manitoba and Québec/Labrador, were not present in R.t. grand, R.t. pearyi, R.t. tarandus or R.t. platyrhynchus, and present only at very low frequencies 'm R.t. groenlandicus. These findings, together with genetic identity analyses, suggest that the caribou in Manitoba, Ontario, and Québec/Labrador are mainly of the R.t. caribou type, and that little interbreeding has occurred with other subspecies. The large genetic distance in the transferrin locus between R.t. caribou and other subspecies of reindeer/caribou suggests that, during the Wisconsin glaciation the ancestral populations of R.t. caribou survived in a refugium different from that of the ancestral populations of the other subspecies. Significant genetic differences between Baffin Island caribou and all other populations were mainly due to the presence of one allele that was in high frequency in Baffin Island caribou, but that was absent, or present in very low frequencies, in all other reindeer/caribou populations. The genetic differences between Baffin Island caribou and the other subspecies were greater than the differences between several of the currently recognized subspecies.
Highlights
Reindeer and caribou (Rangifer tarandus) are distributed throughout the northern part of the Holarctic region
We present transferrin allele 200 animals (Crete, unpublished data), is classified frequencies of populations of R.t. caribou from regi- as endangered because it is the last wild caribou poons of Ontario and Manitoba, as well as from north- pulation still surviving east of the St
Similar difference in allele frequency was found in Tf1, which was relatively common in both the Baffin Island (p=0.094) and the Beverly (p=0.121) populations, but was absent, or present at very low frequencies, in populations from all other areas
Summary
Reindeer and caribou (Rangifer tarandus) are distributed throughout the northern part of the Holarctic region. Caribou, R.t granti, and the Canadian barren- Transferrin allele frequencies in caribou from Baffin ground caribou, R.t. groenlandicus, while the Arctic Island, N.W.T., are presented. These caribou are island forms include the Svalbard reindeer, R.t. pla- usually recognized as Canadian barren-ground carityrhynchus, and the Peary caribou, R.t. pearyi (see bou (Banfield, 1961), from a geographical. Within the on in different subspecies of the tundra reindeer/ca- local Frobisher Bay area, caribou number at least ribou group, Røed and Whitten (1986) reported a major dichotomy in the allele distribution between the two continental tundra forms, Alaska caribou and Eurasian reindeer, on the one hand, and the two 9000 animals based on incomplete 1982-84 surveys (Ferguson, unpublished data). The genetic identity among populations and subspecies was calculated according to N e i (1972)
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