Genetic signatures of population change in the British golden eagle ( Aquila chrysaetos )

摘要: The golden eagle (Aquila chrysaetos) was once widely distributed in the uplands of British Isles, but is now extinct Ireland, and largely confined to highlands islands Scotland. As precise extent severity reduction population size are unclear, it important understand how affected by decline. We therefore genotyped 13 polymorphic microsatellite loci 172 individuals from contemporary compared their genetic diversity 70 9 Irish museum specimens. Despite recent decline, there only slight evidence for a concomitant loss variation. Instead, two likelihood-based Bayesian methods provided severe ancient bottleneck, possibly caused fragmentation large mainland European and/or founding effects colonising Isles. persisted despite this our conclusion that limited need intervention augment present-day diversity. main short-term objective conservation measures should be increase sizes continuous safeguarding habitat management. Finally, we also confirmed that, management purposes, species considered single unit not differentiated one.