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Temporality of coat patterns in endangered Eurasian lynx population in Croatia

Phenotypic traits in felids show a great diversity of coat pattern and marking. In Eurasian lynx (Lynx lynx), four types of coat pattern had been identified: big spots, small spots, rosettes and coat with no spots. The present study aimed to track frequencies of coat patterns over time in endangered Eurasian lynx in Croatia. A total of 195 photographs of lynx individuals from Croatia, collected in the 1978–2019 period was used. Individuals shown in photographs were assigned to one of the four coat patterns by two researchers working independently. Discrepancies were resolved by a third researcher in 20 (10.26%) cases when the first two researchers disagreed. Later, the frequencies of each of the four patterns were compared between images taken in 1980–1994 and 2011–2019 using chi-squared test. Frequencies of all four coat patterns differed significantly between individuals photographed in 1978–1999 and those photographed in 2000– 2019 (p < 0.05). The frequency of coats without spots fell from 14% to zero, coats of rosettes dropped from 23% to 9%, coats of small spots dropped from 16.5% to 11.5%, while the frequency of big spots increased from 46% to 80%. The change in the frequency of all coat patterns may be attributed to the small population size with limited gene flow. Dinaric lynx population was established by a reintroduction of six individuals into Slovenia in 1973 from the Slovakian Carpathian Mountains. Offspring of those animals successfully dispersed to Croatia, Italy, Austria as well as Bosnia and Herzegovina, but the population remained isolated. Forty years later, significant inbreeding and low effective population size were proven by genetic analysis in Dinaric lynx population. Therefore, the phenotypic population profile could be used as an indicator of potential genetic-based conservation problems. Nevertheless, to be sure that inbreeding plays the key role in the observed phenotypic change, genetic analyses should always be conducted.

Eurasian lynx, Lynx lynx, endangered populations, coat patterns, phenotypic population profile

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