A new study has detected a high degree of inbreeding, low genetic variation and an accumulation of harmful mutations in African elephants, making them more vulnerable to environmental changes and diseases.
A team of scientists has discovered that elephants are capable of traveling great distances and exchanging genes across the African continent.
According to , samples were used that had been stored in biobanks during previous investigations, more than 30 yearsand generated high-quality genomes through biotechnology company Illumina’s iConserve program.
In new, published this Thursday in Nature Communicationsresearchers analyzed 232 genomes of savannah and forest elephants, having been collected in 17 African countries.
Through this study, genetic signs of insulation in several populations where herds of elephants became isolated due to huntas well as the growth of human populations and their needs for agriculture and infrastructure development.
“Our study shows that elephants were connected to each other over long distances. This freedom of movement created genetic robustness, because populations mixed. Today, the picture is different. Elephants live in an increasingly restricted space, where some populations are becoming isolated”, says the first author of the study, Patrícia Pečnerová.
Remote areas in northeast Africa, in Eritrea by you Ethiopiaare home to isolated populations of elephants, where they are found more than 400 kilometers away from other populations and are surrounded by human settlements and agricultural areas.
The researchers found a high degree of consanguinity, low genetic variation and a accumulation of harmful mutationswhich makes them more vulnerable to environmental changes and disease.
A similar pattern emerges in West Africawhere high human population densities and the ivory trade have also isolated and reduced elephant populations.
Contrary to what was expected, savannah elephants in Central Africa do not show the same loss of genetic variation observed in isolated populations from Eritrea and Ethiopia.
Although they are also consanguineous Due to population bottlenecks and isolation in the past, the impact on genetic variation is partially reduced because genes from forest elephants have flowed into these populations through interspecies hybridization.
Furthermore, savannah elephants show traces of ancestry from forest elephants. This situation reveals that, although genetic exchange was fundamental within species, it also occurred between the two species of African elephants.
“By reconstructing their history, we discovered that savannah and forest elephants have followed different population trajectories over the past four million yearswith more than 85% of global genetic variation in elephants is due to the differences between them”, says the study’s lead author, Alfred Roca.
This study also reveals the history of elephants, which were constantly changing in response to human impacts and at climate change.
“Evidence of inbreeding in isolated and declining populations of savannah elephants is cause for concern, especially as the samples on which this study is based are dated before the period of poaching for ivory,” adds study co-author, Chris Thouless.
O genetic atlas Not only does it provide new knowledge about the past and movement of elephants, it is also a tool for authorities working to protect them.
Finally, the genetic tools and data generated in this work can support wildlife forensic science, helping to discover the origins of illegal ivory, reinforcing efforts to combat ivory. illegal trade of wild species.
ZAP //
