Skip to main content
SpringerLink
Log in

Conservation of fragmented small populations: endemic species persistence on California's smallest channel island

  • Published:
Biodiversity & Conservation Aims and scope Submit manuscript

Abstract

We examined resilience to extreme reduction of habitat, and long-term and long-distance isolation for an endemic species using California's Santa Barbara Island as a natural model. The island is smaller than 260 ha, has been isolated by 40 km of ocean from the nearest other island for more than 10,000 years and was severely impacted by human activities and feral browsers during at least the past 90 years. Less than 0.2 km2 of native plant cover remains, yet seven apparently endemic plants and animals persist, including a moth, Argyrotaenia isolatissima (Tortricidae). Using mitochondrial DNA sequence we examined the levels of genetic divergence between the moth and its closest relatives on the other Channel Islands and the California mainland. A. isolatissima has 15 bp differences, including one non-synonymous substitution, from the most closely related taxon, on San Nicolas Island. Both parsimony and likelihood-based molecular systematic analyses confirm the evolutionary independence of A. isolatissima and indicate that portions of an endemic flora and fauna may persist in small fragments, despite long-term isolation and disturbance. Habitat conservation planning may underestimate the value of very small, temporally and spatially isolated fragments of native habitat not only to maintain, but also to generate endemic biodiversity.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this article

Log in via an institution

Price excludes VAT (USA)
Tax calculation will be finalised during checkout.

Instant access to the full article PDF.

Institutional subscriptions

Similar content being viewed by others

References

  • Abensperg-Traun M. and Smith G.T. 1999. How small is too small for small animals? Four terrestrial arthropod species in different-sized remnant woodlands in agricultural Western Australia. Biodiversity and Conservation 8: 709–726.

    Google Scholar 

  • Alonso A., Dallmeier F., Granek E. and Raven P. 2001. Biodiversity: connecting with the tapestry of life. Smithsonian Institution/Monitoring and Assessment of Biodiversity Program and President's Committee of Advisors on Science and Technology, Washington, DC.

    Google Scholar 

  • Applied Biosystems Inc. 1994. Sequence Navigator. Applied Biosystems, Foster City, California.

    Google Scholar 

  • Avise J.C. 2000. Phylogeography: The History and Formation of Species. Harvard University Press, Cambridge, Massachusetts.

    Google Scholar 

  • Barbosa O. and Marquet P.A. 2002. Effects of forest fragmentation on the beetle assemblage at the relict forest of Fray Jorge, Chile. Oecologia 132: 296–306.

    Google Scholar 

  • Brower A.V.Z. 1994. Rapid morphological radiation and convergence among races of the butterfly Heliconius erato inferred from patterns of mitochondrial DNA evolution. Proceedings of the National Academy of Science USA 91: 6491–6495.

    Google Scholar 

  • Caterino M.S., Cho S. and Sperling F.A.H. 2000. The current state of insect molecular systematics: a thriving tower of Babel. Annual Review of Entomology 45: 1–54.

    Google Scholar 

  • Caterino M.S., Reed R.D., Kuo M.M. and Sperling F.A.H. 2001. A partitioned likelihood analysis of swallowtail butterfly phylogeny (Lepidoptera: Papilionidae). Systematic Biology 50: 106–127.

    Google Scholar 

  • Cracraft J. 1983. The significance of phylogenetic classifications for systematic and evolutionary biology. In: Felsenstein J. (ed), Numerical Taxonomy. Springer, Berlin, Germany, pp. 1–17.

    Google Scholar 

  • Daily M. (ed) 1993. Santa Barbara Island. Occasional Paper 6, Santa Cruz Island Foundation, Santa Barbara, California, x+ 112 pp.

    Google Scholar 

  • Demboski J.R., Jacobsen B.K. and Cook J.A. 1998. Implications of cytochrome b sequence variation for biogeography and conservation of the northern flying squirrels (Glaucomys sabrinus) of the Alexander Archipelago, Alaska. Canadian Journal of Zoology 76: 1771–1777.

    Google Scholar 

  • Duvernell D.D. and Turner B.J. 1998. Evolutionary genetics of Death Valley pupfish populations: mitochondrial DNA sequence variation and population structure. Molecular Ecology 7: 279–288.

    Google Scholar 

  • Echelle A.A., Van Den Bussche R.A., Malloy Jr. T.P., Haynie M.M. and Minckley C.O. 2000. Mitochondrial DNA variation in pupfishes assigned to the Cyprinodon macularius (Atherinomorpha: Cyprinodontidae): taxonomic implications and conservation genetics. Copeia 2: 353–364.

    Google Scholar 

  • Fleishman E., Launer A.E., Weiss S.B., Reed M.J., Boggs C.L., Murphy D.D. and Ehrlich P.R. 2000. Effects of microclimate and oviposition timing on prediapause larval survival of the bay checkerspot butterfly, Euphydryas editha bayensis (Lepidoptera: Nymphalidae). Journal of Research on the Lepidoptera 36: 31–44.

    Google Scholar 

  • Fox B.J. and Fox M.D. 2000. Factors determining mammal species richness on habitat islands and isolates: habitat diversity, disturbance, species interactions, and guild assembly rules. Global Ecology and Biogeography 9: 19–37.

    Google Scholar 

  • Gillespie J.H. 1991. The Causes of Molecular Evolution. Oxford University Press, Oxford, UK.

    Google Scholar 

  • Green D.M., Sharbel T.F., Kearsley J. and Kaiser H. 1996. Postglacial range fluctuations, genetic subdivision and speciation in the western North American spotted frog complex, Rana pretiosa. Evolution 50: 374–390.

    Google Scholar 

  • Hanski I. 1994. Patch-occupancy dynamics in fragmented landscapes. Trends in Ecology and Evolution 9: 131–135.

    Google Scholar 

  • Haikola S., Fortelius W., O'Hara R.B., Kuussaari M., Wahlberg N., Saccheri I.J. et al. 2001. Inbreeding depression and the maintenance of genetic load in Melitaea cinxia metapopulations. Conservation Genetics 2: 325–335.

    Google Scholar 

  • Harris L.D. 1984. The Fragmented Forest: Island Biogeography Theory and the Preservation of Biotic Diversity. University of Chicago Press, Chicago, Illinois.

    Google Scholar 

  • Hasegawa M., Kishino K. and Yano T. 1985. Dating the human–ape splitting by a molecular clock of mitochondrial DNA. Journal of Molecular Evolution 32: 443–445.

    Google Scholar 

  • Hedin M.C. 1997. Speciational history in a diverse clade of habitat-specialized spiders (Araneae: Nesticidae: Nesticus): inferences from geographic-based sampling. Evolution 51: 1929–1945.

    Google Scholar 

  • Keller L.F. and Waller D.M. 2002. Inbreeding effects in wild populations. Trends in Ecology and Evolution 17: 230–241.

    Google Scholar 

  • Kim I., Phillips C.J., Monjeau J.A., Birney E.C., Noack K., Pumo D.E. et al. 1998. Habitat islands, genetic diversity, and gene flow in a Patagonian rodent. Molecular Ecology 7: 667–678.

    Google Scholar 

  • Landry B., Powell J.A. and Sperling F.A.H. 1999. Systematics of the Argyrotaenia franciscana (Lepidoptera: Tortricidae) species group: evidence from mitochondrial DNA. Annals of the Entomological Society of America 92: 40–46.

    Google Scholar 

  • Lawes M.J., Mealin P.E. and Piper S.E. 2000. Patch occupancy and potential metapopulation dynamics of three forest mammals in fragmented afromontane forest in South Africa. Conservation Biology 14: 1088–1098.

    Google Scholar 

  • Li W.-H. 1997. Molecular Evolution. Sinauer Associates, Sunderland, Massachusetts.

    Google Scholar 

  • Liebherr J.K. and Zimmerman E.C. 2000. Insects of Hawaii: Hawaiian Carabidae (Coleoptera), Part 1, Vol. 16. University of Hawaii Press, Honolulu, Hawaii.

    Google Scholar 

  • Lipps J.H., Valentine J.W. and Mitchell E. 1968. Pleistocene paleoecology and biostratigraphy, Santa Barbara Island, California. Journal of Paleontology 42: 291–307.

    Google Scholar 

  • MacArthur R.H. and Wilson E.O. 1967. The Theory of Island Biogeography. Princeton University Press, Princeton, New Jersey.

    Google Scholar 

  • Moore W.S. 1995. Inferring phylogenies from mtDNA variation: mitochondrial-gene trees versus nuclear-gene trees. Evolution 49: 718–726.

    Google Scholar 

  • Myers M.J., Sperling F.A.H. and Resh V.H. 2001. Dispersal of two species of Trichoptera from desert springs: conservation implications for isolated vs. connected populations. Journal of Insect Conservation 5: 207–215.

    Google Scholar 

  • Palo J., Varvio S.-L., Hanski I. and Vainola R. 1995. Developing microsatellite markers for insect population structure: complex variation in a checkerspot butterfly. Hereditas 123: 295–300.

    Google Scholar 

  • Philbrick R.N. 1972. The plants of Santa Barbara Island, California. Madrono 21: 329–393.

    Google Scholar 

  • Porter B.A., Cavender T.M. and Fuerst P.A. 2002. Molecular phylogeny of the snubnose darters, sub-genus Ulocentra (genus Etheostoma, family Percidae). Molecular Phylogenetics and Evolution 22: 364–374.

    Google Scholar 

  • Posada D. and Crandall K.A. 1998. Modeltest: testing the model of DNA substitution. Bioinformatics 14: 817–818.

    Google Scholar 

  • Powell J.A. 1964. Biological and taxonomic studies on tortricine moths, with reference to the species in California. University of California Publications in Entomology 32: 1–317.

    Google Scholar 

  • Powell J.A. 1994. Biogeography of Lepidoptera on the California Channel Islands. In: Halvorson W. and Maender G. (eds) The Fourth California Islands Symposium: Update on the Status of Resources. Santa Barbara Museum of Natural History, Santa Barbara, California, pp. 449–464.

    Google Scholar 

  • Reed R.D. and Sperling F.A.H. 1999. Interaction of process partitions in phylogenetic analysis: an example from the swallowtail butterfly genus Papilio. Molecular Biology and Evolution 16: 286–297.

    Google Scholar 

  • Rentz D.C. and Weissman D.B. 1973. The origins and affinities of the Orthoptera of the Channel Islands and adjacent mainland California. Part I. The genus Cnemotettix. Proceedings of the Academy of Natural Sciences of Philadelphia 125: 89–120.

    Google Scholar 

  • Rentz D.C. and Weissman D.B. 1982. Faunal affinities, systematics, and bionomics of the Orthoptera of the California Channel Islands. University of California Publications in Entomology 94, 240 pp.

  • Rodriguez F., Oliver J.F., Marin A. and Medina J.R. 1990. The general stochastic model of nucleotide substitution. Journal of Theoretical Biology 142: 485–501.

    Google Scholar 

  • Rubinoff D. 2001. Evaluating the California gnatcatcher as an umbrella species for conservation of coastal sage scrub. Conservation Biology 15: 1374–1383.

    Google Scholar 

  • Rubinoff D. and Sperling F.A.H. 2002. Evolution of ecological traits and wing morphology in Hemileuca (Saturniidae) based on a two gene phylogeny. Molecular Phylogenetics and Evolution 25: 70–86.

    Google Scholar 

  • Sanderson E.W., Redford K.H., Chetkiewicz C.B., Medellin R.A., Rabinowitz A.R., Robinson J.G. and Taber A.B. 2002. Planning to save a species: the jaguar as a model. Conservation Biology 16: 58–72.

    Google Scholar 

  • Schoenherr A.A., Feldmeth C.R. and Emerson M.J. 1999. Natural History of the Islands of California, California Natural History Guides 61. University of California Press, Berkeley and Los Angeles, California, xi+ 491 pp.

    Google Scholar 

  • Simberloff D. 1995. Habitat fragmentation and population extinction of birds. Ibis 137 (Suppl. 1): 105–111.

    Google Scholar 

  • Sorenson M.D. 1999. TreeRot, Version 2. Boston University, Boston, Massachusetts. http: //mightyduck. bu.edu/TreeRot/index.html.

    Google Scholar 

  • Sperling F.A.H. 1993. Mitochondrial DNA variation and Haldane's rule in the Papilio glaucus and P. troilus species groups. Heredity 71: 227–233.

    Google Scholar 

  • Sperling F.A.H. 1994. Sex-linked genes and species differences in Lepidoptera. Canadian Entomology 126: 807–818.

    Google Scholar 

  • Sperling F.A.H., Spence J.R. and Andersen N.M. 1997. Mitochondrial DNA, allozymes, morphology, and hybrid compatibility in Limnoporus water striders (Heteroptera: Gerridae): do they all track species phylogenies? Annals of the Entomological Society of America 90: 401–414.

    Google Scholar 

  • Swofford D.L. 2002. PAUP*. Phylogenetic analysis using parsimony (*and other methods). Version 4. Sinauer Associates, Sunderland, Massachusetts.

    Google Scholar 

  • Szalanski A.L., Sikes D.S., Bischof R. and Fritz M. 2000. Population genetics and phylogenetics of the endangered American burying beetle, Nicrophorus americanus (Coleoptera: Silphidae). Annals of the Entomological Society of America 93: 589–594.

    Google Scholar 

  • Talbot S.L. and Shields G.F. 1996. Phylogeography of brown bears (Ursus arctos) of Alaska and paraphyly within the Ursidae. Molecular Phylogenetics and Evolution 5: 477–494.

    Google Scholar 

  • Vucetich L.M., Vucetich J.A., Joshi C.P., Waite T.A. and Peterson R.O. 2001. Genetic (RAPD) diversity in Peromyscus maniculatus populations in a naturally fragmented landscape. Molecular Ecology 10: 35–40.

    Google Scholar 

  • Walter H.S. 1990. Small viable population: the red-tailed hawk of Socorro Island. Conservation Biology 4: 441–443.

    Google Scholar 

  • Whitcomb R.F., Robbins C.S., Lynch J.F., Whitcomb B.L., Klimkiewicz M.K. and Bystrak D. 1981. Effects of forest fragmentation on avifauna of the eastern deciduous forest. In: Burgess R.L. and Sharpe D.M. (eds) Forest Island Dynamics in Man-dominated Landscapes. Springer-Verlag, New York, pp. 125–213.

    Google Scholar 

  • Whittaker R.J., Jones S.H. and Partomihardjo T. 1997. The rebuilding of an isolated rain forest assemblage: how disharmonic is the flora of Krakatau? Biodiversity and Conservation 6: 1671–1696.

    Google Scholar 

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Plant and Environmental Protection Sciences, University of Hawaii, 310 Gilmore Hall, 3050 Maile Way, Honolulu, HI 96822, USA

    Daniel Rubinoff

  2. Division of Insect Biology, University of California, 201 Wellman Hall, Berkeley, CA, 94720, USA

    Jerry A. Powell

Authors
  1. Daniel Rubinoff
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  2. Jerry A. Powell
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Cite this article

Rubinoff, D., Powell, J.A. Conservation of fragmented small populations: endemic species persistence on California's smallest channel island. Biodiversity and Conservation 13, 2537–2550 (2004). https://doi.org/10.1023/B:BIOC.0000048453.56515.d3

Download citation

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1023/B:BIOC.0000048453.56515.d3

Search

Navigation