Genética da conservação do pato-mergulhão (Mergus octosetaceus), uma espécie de ave criticamente ameaçada do cerrado brasileiro

Abstract

With the increasing number of endangered species, conservation studies are increasingly needed. Studies of the reminiscent genetic diversity of threatened populations may provide us with subsidies to seek better management strategies for these populations. The brazilian merganser (Mergus octosetaceus) is one of the most endangered bird species in South America, presenting a very restricted population size. For being extremely sensitive to environmental disturbances, it was classified as critically endangered on the IUCN Red List since 1994. Understanding the population's genetic diversity and promoting strategies to increase this variability is critical to the conservation of the species in its natural environment. To understand the remaining genetic diversity of the brazilian merganser we studied the population genomics of the specie. Using "Genotyping by Sequencing - GBS" we identified 48,517 SNPs belonging to 39 individuals from all areas of occurrence, 5 individuals were discarded for low coverage, 1 had no identified SNPs and 2 were excluded because they were duplicate samples. After the filtering procedure, we obtained 1.328 SNPs belonging to 31 individuals. The remaining populations of the brazilian merganser presents low genetic variability, the Serra da Canastra PARNA and the Alto Paranaíba region behave as only one population, presenting high allele sharing. Bottleneck events may have occurred in species populations and may still cause damage such as high rates of inbreeding. The results indicate that actions for the conservation of the species are urgent and must be started as soon as possible so that genetic diversity is maintained and/or increased, allowing it to survive in its natural environment.