PARENT SESSION
Oral Session #92: Conservation Ecology: Genetics, population viability, interactions.
Presiding: W. Wirtz
Thursday, August 8. 1:00 PM to 3:45 PM. Grand Ballroom West, Radisson.
Conservation implications of MHC variation in the Island Fox.
Aguilar, Andres*,1, Selaya, Annemarie1, Roemer, Gary2, Garcelon, David3, Wayne, Robert1, 1 University of California Los Angeles, Los Angeles, CA2 New Mexico State University, Las Cruces, NM3 Institute for Wildlife Studies, Arcata, CA
ABSTRACT- The Channel Island fox (Urocyon littoralis) offers the unique opportunity to study the maintenance of genetic variation in small populations. Individuals from six of the Channel Islands exhibit varying degrees of genetic variation at neutral loci, with the extreme case of the San Nicolas population which shows no variation whatsoever. We are examining genetic variation at three major histocompatability complex (Mhc) loci for the Channel Island fox and its mainland progenitor, the gray fox (U. cinereoargenteus). The Mhc is a multigene family that contains genes integral to immune function. Natural selection is thought to play an important role in the maintenance of variation at the Mhc for other mammalian taxa. We found that Island foxes show limited polymorphism at the Mhc, while exhibiting many of the hallmark features of Mhc DNA sequence variation. Interestingly polymorphism was discovered for the previously thought genetically monomorphic San Nicolas population. We are also interested in the effect of recent selective sweeps, caused by disease, have had upon fox Mhc. We are currently developing models to assess the strength of selection at the Mhc in Island foxes. These findings have implications for Island fox colonization history, population founding sizes and the current conservation and breeding program.
KEY WORDS: Island Fox, MHC, Conservation Genetics