Abstract
Natural and anthropogenic disasters have the capability to cause sudden extrinsic environmental changes and long-lasting perturbations including invasive species, species expansion and influence evolution as selective pressures force adaption. Such disasters occurred on 11 March 2011, in Fukushima, Japan, when an earthquake, tsunami and meltdown of a nuclear power plant all drastically reformed anthropogenic land use. Using genetic data, we demonstrate how wild boar (Sus scrofa leucomystax) have persevered against these environmental changes, including an invasion of escaped domestic pigs (Sus scrofa domesticus). Concurrently, we show evidence of successful hybridization between pigs and native wild boar in this area; however in future offspring, the pig legacy has been diluted through time. We speculate that the range expansion dynamics inhibit long-term introgression and introgressed alleles will continue to decrease at each generation while only maternally inherited organelles will persist. Using the gene flow data among wild boar, we assume that offspring from hybrid lineages will continue dispersal north at low frequencies as climates warm. We conclude that future risks for wild boar in this area include intraspecies competition, revitalization of human-related disruptions and disease outbreaks.
Highlights
Anthropogenic land use can cause ecological impacts to animals inhabiting the landscape, such as limiting range expansion, driving some species to extinction and overall loss of biodiversity [1,2]
We examined the association between the matrix of the geographical distances and Queller & Goodnights genetics relatedness (r) [41] with three groups: (i) pure-wild boar inside the evacuated zone, (ii) the northern cluster as identified by STRUCTURE, and (iii) among all pure-wild boar, using a Mantel test with 9999 random permutations in GenALEx v. 6.41 [39]
All individuals were assigned to two clusters at K = 2, a first group comprised the 10 pigs, and a second group comprised all the wild boar within the Fukushima evacuation area with 10 admixed individuals in 100% of the independent runs and an additional five admixed individuals in more than 50% of the runs
Summary
Anthropogenic land use can cause ecological impacts to animals inhabiting the landscape, such as limiting range expansion, driving some species to extinction and overall loss of biodiversity [1,2]. While sudden environmental changes or new anthropogenic pressures have caused severe reduction in biodiversity and extinction [6,7], ecosystems have demonstrated ecological resilience and sometimes animal populations experience greater dispersal and increased abundance [8,9]. Evaluation of genetic data and gene flow among populations with indication of expansion trends and high population densities, presumably as a result of sudden ecological changes or a rewilding, may shed light on the adaptive process Human abandonment of such a large area at Fukushima may have provided favourable conditions for a rapid increase in those wildlife species that were able to benefit from landscapes that were formally anthropocentric [10].
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