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The cryptic genetic structure of the North American captive gorilla population

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Abstract

Western lowland gorillas (Gorilla gorilla gorilla) were imported from across their geographical range to North American zoos from the late 1800s through 1974. The majority of these gorillas were imported with little or no information regarding their original provenance and no information on their genetic relatedness. Here, we analyze 32 microsatellite loci in 144 individuals using a Bayesian clustering method to delineate clusters of individuals among a sample of founders of the captive North American zoo gorilla collection. We infer that the majority of North American zoo founders sampled are distributed into two distinct clusters, and that some individuals are of admixed ancestry. This new information regarding the existence of ancestral genetic population structure in the North American zoo population lays the groundwork for enhanced efforts to conserve the evolutionary units of the western lowland gorilla gene pool. Our data also show that the genetic diversity estimates in the founder population were comparable to those in wild gorilla populations (Mondika and Cross River), and that pairwise relatedness among the founders is no different from that expected for a random mating population. However, the relatively high level of relatedness (R = 0.54) we discovered in a pair of known breeding pairs reveals the need for incorporating genetic relatedness estimates in the captive management of western lowland gorillas.

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Acknowledgments

We would like to thank the numerous zoos belonging to the Association of Zoos and Aquariums who have over the years contributed gorilla samples that made the basis of this study. We also are grateful to Drs. S. Burgess-Herbert and R. van Horn of San Diego Zoo’s Institute for Conservation Research, Dr. L. Vigilant of the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology, and two anonymous reviewers for their useful comments on the manuscript, and to all members of the Genetics lab at San Diego Zoo’s Institute for Conservation Research, especially H. Davis, C. Otten, J. Fronczek, and S. Charter, for their technical assistance. We thank Dr. William Karesh, Wildlife Conservation Society, for providing samples from Odzala National Park, Congo, and Dr. Bethan Morgan of San Diego Zoo’s Institute for Conservation Research for providing samples from Ebo Forest, Cameroon. The Zoological Society of San Diego, the James and Helen Copley Foundation, the Bud Heller Foundation, and Twila Schoettger funded this study.

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  1. Genetics Division, San Diego Zoo’s Institute for Conservation Research, 15600 San Pasqual Valley Road, Escondido, CA, 92027, USA

    Anthony M. Nsubuga, Jason Holzman, Leona G. Chemnick & Oliver A. Ryder

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  1. Anthony M. Nsubuga
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Correspondence to Anthony M. Nsubuga.

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Nsubuga, A.M., Holzman, J., Chemnick, L.G. et al. The cryptic genetic structure of the North American captive gorilla population. Conserv Genet 11, 161–172 (2010). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10592-009-0015-x

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