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Low genetic diversity of Eurasian lynx (Lynx lynx) from Croatia

Eurasian lynx (Lynx lynx) is one of the most endangered mammals in the Mediterranean region. At the end of the 19th century it has been eradicated from most of the South European habitats, including the Dinaric Mountains. Dinaric population has been established again in 1973 by reintroduction of six animals from Slovakia to Slovenia, followed by their expansion to Croatia and Bosnia and Herzegovina. By rough estimates today there are 40 – 60 animals present in Croatia and population is strictly protected. Besides poaching, habitat fragmentation and lack of prey, loss of genetic diversity due to inbreeding is thought to be one of the causes of population decline in the past 10 years. The goal of this research was to evaluate the consequences of founder effect and inbreeding on genetic diversity of Eurasian lynx from Croatia. In the period from 1980 to 2010 a total of 15 muscle, 30 bone and 15 tanned-skin samples have been collected. It has been confirmed that all analyzed samples from Croatia had the same mitochondrial DNA control region haplotype, identical to the one from the Baltic, Carpathian and reintroduced Swiss populations. Totally 60 Eurasian lynx samples from Croatia had 62 alleles on 20 microsatellites, or on average 3.1 alleles per locus. Allelic richness was 3, 049 and the effective number of alleles was 2, 113. Observed and expected heterozigosity were 0, 435 and 0, 490, respectively. Dinaric lynx population showed the lowest genetic diversity out of all researched Eurasian lynx populations.

Eurasian lynx; Lynx lynx; mitochondrial DNA; microsatellites

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