The Genetic Consequences of Fragmentation and Small Population Size in Two Grassland Bird Species: The Greater Rhea and the Greater Prairie Chicken

"In addition, genetic analysis of four extant populations of the greater prairie chicken and museum specimens from a prebottlenecked population along with ecological data on population fitness allowed me to directly assess the effects of a demographic bottleneck on the genetic diversity and fitness of a natural population. Microsatellite analysis of current populations showed that Illinois prairie chickens, which have undergone an extreme demographic contraction and an associated decline in population fitness, had the lowest estimate of mean heterozygosity per locus and approximately 2/3 the allelic diversity, sharing 95-100% of all their alleles with each of 3 other populations that have no known bottleneck history or associated declines in fitness. This finding suggests that the Illinois prairie chickens originally had higher levels of genetic diversity that were consequently lost through an extreme demographic contraction. These results were further supported by the DNA analysis of museum specimens of Illinois prairie chickens collected in the 1930s and 1960s, which revealed the loss of specific alleles (known to have been present earlier in this century) following the demographic contraction. In addition to most of the currently extant alleles, I identified in museum specimens 9 alleles not present in the current Illinois population. These ""lost"" alleles included both common alleles present in all other populations and others unique to the Illinois population."

Name thesis:degree_name

Ph.D.

Level thesis:degree_level

Dissertation

Discipline thesis:degree_discipline

Biology

Grantor

University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

Year dc:date

2015

Author dc:creator

• Bouzat, Juan Luis

Contributors dc:contributor

• Paige, Ken N.
• Robinson, Scott K.

• Biology, Zoology

Language dc:language

eng

Identifier

(MiAaPQ)AAI9834655

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:www.ideals.illinois.edu:2142/85398