Moderate Genetic Diversity and Demographic Reduction in the Threatened Giant Anteater, Myrmecophaga tridactyla.

Carmen Elena Barragán-Ruiz,Rosane Silva-Santos,Bruno H Saranholi,Arnaud L J Desbiez,Pedro Manoel Galetti

doi:10.3389/fgene.2021.669350

Abstract

In general, large mammal species with highly specialized feeding behavior and solitary habits are expected to suffer genetic consequences from habitat loss and fragmentation. To test this hypothesis, we analyzed the genetic diversity distribution of the threatened giant anteater inhabiting a human-modified landscape. We used 10 microsatellite loci to assess the genetic diversity and population structure of 107 giant anteaters sampled in the Brazilian Central-Western region. No genetic population structuring was observed in this region suggesting no gene flow restriction within the studied area. On the other hand, the moderate level of genetic diversity (Ho = 0.54), recent bottleneck detected and inbreeding (Fis, 0.13; p ≤ 0.001) signatures suggest potential impacts on the genetic variation of this Xenarthra. Additionally, a previous demographic reduction was suggested. Thus, considering the increased human-promoted impacts across the entire area of distribution of the giant anteater, our results can illustrate the potential effects of these disturbances on the genetic variation, allowing us to request the long-term conservation of this emblematic species.

Highlights

During the last decades, anthropogenic impacts have promoted habitat loss and fragmentation by extensive agriculture, urbanization, and highways and threaten biodiversity worldwide (Storfer et al, 2010; Haddad et al, 2015) including populations of wild animals
Categorized as “Vulnerable” and with decreasing populations in the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) Red List (Miranda et al, 2015) and in the Brazilian Threatened Species List (Miranda et al, 2018), the giant anteater has disappeared in several areas of its original range (Bertassoni et al, 2014), mainly due to habitat reduction and fragmentation caused by anthropic activities (Bertassoni et al, 2014; Miranda et al, 2015)
All clustering analyses concordantly showed no population structuring in the giant anteater across the large area studied

Summary

Introduction

Anthropogenic impacts have promoted habitat loss and fragmentation by extensive agriculture, urbanization, and highways and threaten biodiversity worldwide (Storfer et al, 2010; Haddad et al, 2015) including populations of wild animals. Local genetic variation can be reduced, and genetic differentiation among populations increases, negatively impacting the longterm persistence of wild populations (Reed and Frankham, 2003) In this scenario, large mammals are the most threatened vertebrates affected by habitat loss and fragmentation, resulting in genetic variation loss (Lino et al, 2019). Another study in CentralSouthern Brazil suggests high levels of genetic diversity in a regional geographic scale accompanied by spatial population differentiation (Sartori et al, 2020) Of note, all these previous studies focused on small local populations inhabiting protected areas or surrounding protected areas, and there is no genetic populational analysis evaluating this genetic information in a large-scale anthropized area

Methods

Results

Conclusion