Chapters authored
Genetic Characterization of Jaguars (Panthera onca) in Captivity in Zoological Parks of Colombia
The construction of the pedigree of captive jaguars (Panthera onca) in zoological parks of Colombia was done using the analysis of the Regional Studbook for Jaguars and DNA analysis of 9 microsatellites of 20 Jaguars (n=20). The assignments for paternities and maternities were done with for the program CERVUS and the relationship between animals were established with the KINSHIP program. The analysis of the Studbook was done with SPARKS and PM2000 software generating the following values: genetic diversity for the population (GD=0.7832), potential genetic diversity (GD=0.9113), genic value (GV=0.7846), mean coefficient of inbreeding (F=0.0179), and the Mean KINSHIP (MK) for each individual. The averages of the observed and expected heterozygosity were 0.687 and 0.684 respectively. Nevertheless, a wild jaguar sample of 156 individuals obtained in Colombia substantially showed a higher degree of gene diversity (H = 0.87) than the Colombian captive jaguar population. Thus, the captive jaguar population retained 78 % of the gene diversity of the Colombian wild jaguar population. With this study the pedigree of the captive population of jaguars was built in order to develop an ex situ conservation plan for the species in the Colombian zoological parks.
Part of the book: Big Cats