TITLE:
Patterns of Genetic Diversity of the White-Nosed Coati Reveals Phylogeographically Structured Subpopulations in Mexico
AUTHORS:
Adrián Silva-Caballero, Gloria León-Ávila, David Valenzuela-Galván, Jesús E. Maldonado, Jorge Ortega
KEYWORDS:
Alleles, Cytochrome b, Heterozygosity, Microsatellites, Nasua narica, Procyonids
JOURNAL NAME:
Natural Resources,
Vol.8 No.1,
January
25,
2017
ABSTRACT: Coatis (Procyonidae; Nasua) are considered the only truly social meso-carnivore mammals in Neotropical forests. In Mexico, white-nosed coatis (Nasua narica) are suspected to have undergone population reduction due to habitat loss and fragmentation and led to a lack of genetic adaptability and genetic isolation throughout its range. We examined patterns of genetic diversity and connectivity of five populations of Nasua narica distributed throughout Mexico (n = 60) by sequencing an ≈ 800 bp fragment of the mitochondrial cytochrome-b gene and also by screening 12 microsatellite loci. We found moderate to high levels of genetic variability for both genetic markers. We recorded twenty-two different cytochrome-b haplotypes throughout the 5 sampled areas and found that each of the sampled population of white-nosed coatis in Mexico harbors unique haplotypes and only three haplotypes were shared among two different populations that were closer geographically. All populations had high haplotype diversity (h) (0.968 ± 0.008 (SD)) but lower levels of nucleotide diversity (π) of 0.007 ± 0.001 (SD). All microsatellite loci were polymorphic in all of the populations and the mean number of alleles per locus was 5.033 ± 1.545 (SD) with expected (HE) and observed (HO) heterozygosity values of 0.774 and 0.664, respectively. However, low Wright F statistic values suggest the existence of a reduced heterozygosity (FST = 0.203, FIS = 0.134 and FIT = 0.310). Significant differences between the five populations confirmed isolation by distance, which suggests genetic structure among five subpopulations.