Canine distemper virus(CDV)has recently been identified in populations of wild tigers in Russia and India.Tiger populations are generally too small to maintain CDV for long periods,but are at risk of infections arisin...Canine distemper virus(CDV)has recently been identified in populations of wild tigers in Russia and India.Tiger populations are generally too small to maintain CDV for long periods,but are at risk of infections arising from more abundant susceptible hosts that constitute a reservoir of infection.Because CDV is an additive mortality factor,it could represent a significant threat to small,isolated tiger populations.In Russia,CDV was associated with the deaths of tigers in 2004 and 2010,and was coincident with a localized decline of tigers in Sikhote-Alin Biosphere Zapovednik(from 25 tigers in 2008 to 9 in 2012).Habitat continuity with surrounding areas likely played an important role in promoting an ongoing recovery.We recommend steps be taken to assess the presence and the impact of CDV in all tiger range states,but should not detract focus away from the primary threats to tigers,which include habitat loss and fragmentation,poaching and retaliatory killing.Research priorities include:(i)recognition and diagnosis of clinical cases of CDV in tigers when they occur;and(ii)collection of baseline data on the health of wild tigers.CDV infection of individual tigers need not imply a conservation threat,and modeling should complement disease surveillance and targeted research to assess the potential impact to tiger populations across the range of ecosystems,population densities and climate extremes occupied by tigers.Describing the role of domestic and wild carnivores as contributors to a local CDV reservoir is an important precursor to considering control measures.展开更多
Poaching and trans-boundary trafficking of tigers and body parts are threatening the world’s last remaining wild tigers.Development of an efficient molecular genetic assay for tracing the origins of confiscated speci...Poaching and trans-boundary trafficking of tigers and body parts are threatening the world’s last remaining wild tigers.Development of an efficient molecular genetic assay for tracing the origins of confiscated specimens will assist in law enforcement and wildlife forensics for this iconic flagship species.We developed a multiplex genotyping system“tigrisPlex”to simultaneously assess 22 short tandem repeat(STR,or microsatellite)loci and a gender-identifying SRY gene,all amplified in 4 reactions using as little as 1 ng of template DNA.With DNA samples used for between-run calibration,the system generates STR genotypes that are directly compatible with voucher tiger subspecies genetic profiles,hence making it possible to identify subspecies via bi-parentally inherited markers.We applied“tigrisPlex”to 12 confiscated specimens from Russia and identified 6 individuals(3 females and 3 males),each represented by duplicated samples and all designated as Amur tigers(Panthera tigris altaica)with high confidence.This STR multiplex system can serve as an effective and versatile approach for genetic profiling of both wild and captive tigers as well as confiscated tiger products,fulfilling various conservation needs for identifying the origins of tiger samples.展开更多
基金We would like to thank the Morris Animal Foundation,Zoo Boise,and the Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council for their generous support of the project.In addition,none of this work would have been possible without the continued partnership of the Sikhote-Alin Biosphere Zapovednik(Director D.Yu.Gorskhov),Lazovskii Zapovednik(Director A.A.Laptev)and the Russian Ministry of Natural Resources.Thanks also to V.Keahey(In-Sync Exotics)for insights into the epidemiology of CDV.
文摘Canine distemper virus(CDV)has recently been identified in populations of wild tigers in Russia and India.Tiger populations are generally too small to maintain CDV for long periods,but are at risk of infections arising from more abundant susceptible hosts that constitute a reservoir of infection.Because CDV is an additive mortality factor,it could represent a significant threat to small,isolated tiger populations.In Russia,CDV was associated with the deaths of tigers in 2004 and 2010,and was coincident with a localized decline of tigers in Sikhote-Alin Biosphere Zapovednik(from 25 tigers in 2008 to 9 in 2012).Habitat continuity with surrounding areas likely played an important role in promoting an ongoing recovery.We recommend steps be taken to assess the presence and the impact of CDV in all tiger range states,but should not detract focus away from the primary threats to tigers,which include habitat loss and fragmentation,poaching and retaliatory killing.Research priorities include:(i)recognition and diagnosis of clinical cases of CDV in tigers when they occur;and(ii)collection of baseline data on the health of wild tigers.CDV infection of individual tigers need not imply a conservation threat,and modeling should complement disease surveillance and targeted research to assess the potential impact to tiger populations across the range of ecosystems,population densities and climate extremes occupied by tigers.Describing the role of domestic and wild carnivores as contributors to a local CDV reservoir is an important precursor to considering control measures.
基金This research was supported by the Peking-Tsinghua Center for Life Sciences at Peking University(PKU)and the National Natural Science Foundation of China(NSFC No.31271320,No.31471179).We thank Zhi Dong,Yan Zhuang,Yuechen Liu,Lin Miao and Galina Nemkova for technical assistance.Reference tiger samples for calibration were kindly provided by Dr Stephen O’Brien under a Material Transfer Agreement signed between PKU and the National Cancer Institute,USA,and in full compliance with the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species.We also thank Dale Miquelle for helpful comments on an earlier version of the manuscript.
文摘Poaching and trans-boundary trafficking of tigers and body parts are threatening the world’s last remaining wild tigers.Development of an efficient molecular genetic assay for tracing the origins of confiscated specimens will assist in law enforcement and wildlife forensics for this iconic flagship species.We developed a multiplex genotyping system“tigrisPlex”to simultaneously assess 22 short tandem repeat(STR,or microsatellite)loci and a gender-identifying SRY gene,all amplified in 4 reactions using as little as 1 ng of template DNA.With DNA samples used for between-run calibration,the system generates STR genotypes that are directly compatible with voucher tiger subspecies genetic profiles,hence making it possible to identify subspecies via bi-parentally inherited markers.We applied“tigrisPlex”to 12 confiscated specimens from Russia and identified 6 individuals(3 females and 3 males),each represented by duplicated samples and all designated as Amur tigers(Panthera tigris altaica)with high confidence.This STR multiplex system can serve as an effective and versatile approach for genetic profiling of both wild and captive tigers as well as confiscated tiger products,fulfilling various conservation needs for identifying the origins of tiger samples.
