Journal
CONSERVATION GENETICS
Volume 18, Issue 4, Pages 977-982Publisher
SPRINGER
DOI: 10.1007/s10592-017-0939-5
Keywords
Conservation genomics; Devil facial tumor disease; Gene flow; Population bottlenecks; RAD sequencing; Transmissible cancer
Categories
Funding
- NSF [DEB-1316549]
- NIH [P30GM03324]
- Australian Research Council Future Fellowship [FT100100250]
- Direct For Biological Sciences
- Division Of Environmental Biology [1316549] Funding Source: National Science Foundation
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Tasmanian devils face a combination of threats to persistence, including devil facial tumor disease (DFTD), an epidemic transmissible cancer. We used RAD sequencing to investigate genome-wide patterns of genetic diversity and geographic population structure. Consistent with previous results, we found very low genetic diversity in the species as a whole, and we detected two broad genetic clusters occupying the northwestern portion of the range, and the central and eastern portions. However, these two groups overlap across a broad geographic area, and differentiation between them is modest ( = 0.1081). Our results refine the geographic extent of the zone of mixed ancestry and substructure within it, potentially informing management of genetic variation that existed in pre-diseased populations of the species. DFTD has spread across both genetic clusters, but recent evidence points to a genomic response to selection imposed by DFTD. Any allelic variation for resistance to DFTD may be able to spread across the devil population under selection by DFTD, and/or be present as standing variation in both genetic regions.
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