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Elsevier, Biological Conservation, 12(141), p. 3059-3068, 2008

DOI: 10.1016/j.biocon.2008.09.017

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Genetic consequences of animal translocations: A case study using the field cricket, Gryllus campestris L.

Journal article published in 2008 by K. A. Witzenberger, A. Hochkirch ORCID
This paper is available in a repository.
This paper is available in a repository.

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Abstract

Animal relocations have become a common tool in nature conservation, but the genetic consequences of such projects have rarely been studied in insects. As both natural and artificial formation of new populations may lead to genetic drift (founder effect), decreased genetic diversity and increased rates of inbreeding, genetic analyses can pro-vide valuable information to evaluate the success of a relocation project. The field cricket (Gryllus campestris) has been subjected to reintroduction and translocation pro-jects in England and northern Germany. Here, we present a microsatellite study on the population genetics of one recently established population of this species in compar-ison with several older populations and some recently colonized sites. Our results show that the translocation did not result in a significant loss of genetic diversity, when com-pared to source and other natural populations suggesting that translocation of a high number of nymphs from different subpopulations may be a suitable method to decrease the loss of genetic diversity and reduce the risk of inbreeding. Furthermore, the trans-location had no negative effect on the source population, which reached a new maxi-mum population size in 2006. An assignment test showed that individuals from the translocated population (F4 generation) were still assigned to the source populations, whereas two young subpopulations that originated by natural colonization from the central population about ten years ago already formed separate genetic clusters. As the strong fragmentation of G. campestris populations in northern Germany hampers natural colonization of newly created potential habitats, translocation projects seem to be an appropriate method to preserve this species.