Endangered subspecies of the Reed Bunting ( and ) in Iberian Peninsula have different genetic structures
Résumé
In the Iberian Peninsula, populations of two subspecies of the Reed Bunting have become increasingly fragmented during the last decades when suitable habitats have been lost and/or the populations have gone extinct. Presently, both subspecies are endangered. We estimated the amount of genetic variation and population structure in order to define conservation units and management practices for these populations. We found that the subspecies has clearly reduced genetic variation in nuclear and mitochondrial markers, has a drastically small effective population size and no genetic differentiation between populations. In contrast, the subspecies is significantly structured, but the populations still hold large amounts of variation even though the effective population sizes are smaller than in the non-endangered subspecies . We suggest several management units for the Iberian populations. One unit includes subspecies as a whole; the other three units are based on genetically differentiated populations of . The most important genetic conservation measure in the case of is to preserve the remaining habitats in order to at least maintain the present levels of gene flow. In the case of the three management units within , the most urgent conservation measure is to improve the habitat quality to increase the population sizes.
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