Demographic and Genetic Estimates of Effective Population and Breeding Size in the Amphibian Rana temporaria

• Published in: Conservation biology Vol. 21; no. 1; pp. 142 - 151
• Main Authors: SCHMELLER, DIRK S, MERILÄ, JUHA
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Malden, USA Blackwell Publishing Inc 01.02.2007; Blackwell Science; Blackwell; Blackwell Publishing Ltd; Wiley
• Subjects: Amphibia. Reptilia; Animal populations; Animal reproduction; Animal, plant and microbial ecology; Animals; Anura; Applied ecology; Bayes Theorem; Biological and medical sciences; breeding; Conservation biology; Conservation of Natural Resources; Conservation, protection and management of environment and wildlife; Demographics; Demography; Ecological genetics; effective population size; Environmental Sciences; Estimation methods; Evolutionary genetics; explosive breeder; frogs; Fundamental and applied biological sciences. Psychology; generation time; Genetic Variation; Genetics; Linkage Disequilibrium; Microsatellite Repeats; Microsatellite Repeats - genetics; microsatellites; microsatélites; Molecular genetics; Parks, reserves, wildlife conservation. Endangered species: population survey and restocking; Pero; physiology; Ponds; Population Density; Population estimates; Population genetics; Population number; Population size; Rana; Rana temporaria; Rana temporaria - genetics; Rana temporaria - physiology; Reproduction; Reproduction - physiology; reproductor explosivo; Reptiles & amphibians; Sex Ratio; Sus; tamaño poblacional efectivo; tiempo generacional; variance; Vertebrates: general zoology, morphology, phylogeny, systematics, cytogenetics, geographical distribution; explosive breeder; Demography; Amphibia; Population number; Salientia; microsatellites; effective population size; Vertebrata; Reproduction; Ranidae; Explosives; Generation time; Rana temporaria; anura; Environmental protection
• ISSN: 0888-8892; 1523-1739
• DOI: 10.1111/j.1523-1739.2006.00554.x

Genetic methods for estimating effective population size ( Ne) or the effective number of breeders ( Nb) have become popular, but comparisons of these estimates with demographic estimates of Neand Nbare rare, especially in anurans. We used three genetic (linkage disequilibrium, temporal moments, Bayesian coalescent-based method) and three demographic models, the latter considering number of breeding individuals, sex ratio, reproductive skew, and other demographic data, to estimate Neand Nbin two subarctic populations (T and P) of the common frog Rana temporaria, subject to long-term capture-recapture studies. Demographic estimates of Nebased on total population size ( Ne[T]= 44.5-56.9; Ne[P]= 68.8-93.7) deviated markedly from the genetic estimates obtained using the linkage disequilibrium method ( Ne[T]= 97.1; Ne[P]= 13.2). The demographic estimates of Nb, taking into consideration sex ratio and variance in reproductive success ( Nb[T]= 10.1-39.7; Nb[P]= 3.9-21.3), were higher than the genetic estimates ( Nb[T]= 3.7-5.4; Nb[P]= 3.5-3.9). The main factors affecting the effective size estimates were sex ratio and reproductive skew. The discrepancies between corresponding Neand Nbestimates highlight the sensitivity of both demographic and genetic estimates on their underlying assumptions. Yet the ratios of effective or breeding effective size to the census population size were similar to those reported earlier for anurans, reinforcing the view that the discrepancy between actual and effective breeding sizes in anuran populations is typically very large.