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van Oosterhout, Cock 
ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5653-738X, Smith, Alan M., Hänfling, Bernd, Ramnarine, Indar W., Mohammed, Ryan S. and Cable, Joanne
(2007)
The guppy as a conservation model: implications of parasitism and inbreeding on reintroduction success.
Conservation Biology, 21 (6).
pp. 1573-1583.
ISSN 1523-1739
Abstract
Ex situ conservation is of increasing importance to prevent the extinction of endangered animals in the wild. Despite low success rates of reintroduction programs few researchers have investigated empirically the efficacy of captive breeding regimes for the release of captive-bred vertebrates. We used guppies (Poecilia reticulata) from two populations in Trinidad to compare different conservation breeding regimes. The upper Aripo population was chosen for its small effective population size (Ne≈ 100) and genetic isolation, which makes it representative of many endangered natural populations. By contrast, the lower Aripo population is a genetically diverse, much larger population (Ne≈ 2400). We examined three captive-breeding regimes: (1) inbreeding fish crossed with their full siblings, (2) minimized inbreeding, no consanguineous matings, and (3) control fish crossed at random. We kept pedigree records for all regimes so that we could calculate inbreeding coefficients over four generations. The body size and fertility of guppies was significantly reduced due to inbreeding depression. The genetic load of sterile equivalents was particularly high for the lower Aripo population. Body size also declined due to breeding conditions in the captive environment. After four generations in captivity, the fish were released into a mesocosm in Trinidad. Captive-bred guppies were extremely susceptible to gyrodactylid parasites (58% survival rate) compared with their wild counterparts (96% survival). A reduced level of immunogenetic variation due to inbreeding and lack of exposure to natural parasites may have rendered captive-bred individuals more prone to infectious disease. The threat of disease outbreak is particularly high when naive captive-bred hosts are released in wild populations. Susceptible, captive-bred hosts could facilitate the transmission of parasites throughout the wild population, thus initiating an epidemic. This risk could potentially be reduced by prior exposure to parasites before release and gradual release of captive-bred individuals.
| Item Type: | Article |
|---|---|
| Additional Information: | An erratum is available for this article: 10.1111/j.1523-1739.2007.00876.x The bottom graph in Fig. 2 is incorrect and the erratum provides the correct graph. Funding information: This work was funded by the Natural Environment Research Council (United Kingdom) Research Fellowship to C.v.O. (NER/I/S/2000/00885). |
| Faculty \ School: | Faculty of Science > School of Environmental Sciences |
| UEA Research Groups: | Faculty of Science > Research Centres > Centre for Ecology, Evolution and Conservation |
| Depositing User: | Rachel Snow |
| Date Deposited: | 25 Feb 2011 10:08 |
| Last Modified: | 22 Jul 2024 18:30 |
| URI: | https://ueaeprints.uea.ac.uk/id/eprint/24907 |
| DOI: | 10.1111/j.1523-1739.2007.00809.x |
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