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The importance of well protected forests for the conservation genetics of West African colobine monkeys |
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| Authors: | Tânia Minhós Filipa Borges Bárbara Parreira Rúben Oliveira Isa Aleixo-Pais Fabien H Leendertz Roman Wittig Carlos Rodríguez Fernandes Guilherme Henrique Lima Marques Silva Miguel Duarte Michael W Bruford Maria Joana Ferreira da Silva Lounès Chikhi |
| Institution: | 1. Centre for Research in Anthropology (CRIA-NOVA FCSH), Lisboa, Portugal;2. Instituto Gulbenkian de Ciência, Oeiras, Portugal;3. Senciência, Lda., Palácio Baldaya—CoWork Baldaya, Lisboa, Portugal
cE3c—Centre for Ecology, Evolution and Environmental Changes, Faculdade de Ciências, Universidade de Lisboa, Lisboa, Portugal Contribution: Data curation (supporting), Formal analysis (supporting), Methodology (supporting), Writing - original draft (equal);4. Epidemiology of Highly Pathogenic Microorganisms, Robert Koch Institute, Berlin, Germany Helmholtz Institute for One Health, Greifswald, Germany Contribution: Data curation (equal), Resources (equal);5. Department of Human Behavior, Ecology and Culture, Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology, Leipzig, Germany;6. cE3c—Centre for Ecology, Evolution and Environmental Changes, Faculdade de Ciências, Universidade de Lisboa, Lisboa, Portugal;7. Organisms and Environment Division, School of Biosciences, Cardiff University, Cardiff, Wales, UK;8. CIBIO, Centro de Investigação em Biodiversidade e Recursos Genéticos, InBIO Laboratório Associado, Campus de Vairão, Universidade do Porto, Vairão, Portugal |
| Abstract: | In tropical forests, anthropogenic activities are major drivers of the destruction and degradation of natural habitats, causing severe biodiversity loss. African colobine monkeys (Colobinae) are mainly folivore and strictly arboreal primates that require large forests to subsist, being among the most vulnerable of all nonhuman primates. The Western red colobus Piliocolobus badius and the King colobus Colobus polykomos inhabit highly fragmented West African forests, including the Cantanhez Forests National Park (CFNP) in Guinea-Bissau. Both species are also found in the largest and best-preserved West African forest—the Taï National Park (TNP) in Ivory Coast. Colobine monkeys are hunted for bushmeat in both protected areas, but these exhibit contrasting levels of forest fragmentation, thus offering an excellent opportunity to investigate the importance of well-preserved forests for the maintenance of evolutionary potential in these arboreal primates. We estimated genetic diversity, population structure, and demographic history by using microsatellite loci and mitochondrial DNA. We then compared the genetic patterns of the colobines from TNP with the ones previously obtained for CFNP and found contrasting genetic patterns. Contrary to the colobines from CFNP that showed very low genetic diversity and a strong population decline, the populations in TNP still maintain high levels of genetic diversity and we found no clear signal of population decrease in Western red colobus and a limited decrease in King colobus. These results suggest larger and historically more stable populations in TNP compared to CFNP. We cannot exclude the possibility that the demographic effects resulting from the recent increase of bushmeat hunting are not yet detectable in TNP using genetic data. Nevertheless, the fact that the TNP colobus populations are highly genetically diverse and maintain large effective population sizes suggests that well-preserved forests are crucial for the maintenance of populations, species, and probably for the evolutionary potential in colobines. |
| Keywords: | arboreal primates demographic history evolutionary potential habitat fragmentation West Africa |