Conservation genetics for the critically endangered Great Green Macaw

Ex-situ and captive breeding populations are important strategies for endangered species conservation, and the role of genetics is increasingly being recognized in their management. Furthermore, patterns of genetic variation and structure can provide managers with information to support conservation strategies. Molecular markers can be used to assess the status of captive populations, help prevent biodiversity loss and inbreeding and understand genetic diversity in wild and captive populations. We used newly developed microsatellite markers to examine genetic structure and diversity in 4 captive populations and one wild population of the critically endangered Great Green Macaw. We did not find significant differences in expected and observed heterozygosity and allelic richness between all the populations evaluated and found the value for expected heterozygosity in all of them within the range of other macaw and parrot species evaluated. We found genetic structure when we evaluated the five populations together which largely corresponded to three clusters formed by Costa Rican, European and Colombian samples, and found further fine genetic structure when we evaluated Costa Rican samples and the European samples independently. Additionally, we used the microsatellite marker set to determine relatedness between founders of one of the captive breeding populations and to evaluate the relatedness and genetic diversity in the Costa Rican captive and release populations. Our results contribute to the understanding of the genetic diversity of the species, and they can be used to galvanize the management of captive breeding and release populations.