SREL Reprint #2346

Genetic effects of a population bottleneck on a restored deer herd in a National Military Park

Mary J. Ratnaswamy1, Michael H. Smith2, Robert J. Warren3, Carolyn L. Rogers3, and Karl A. K. Stromayer3

1School of Natural Resources, 302 Anheuser-Busch, Natural Resources Building,
University of Missouri-Columbia, Columbia, MO 65211, USA
2Savannah River Ecology Laboratory, Drawer E, Aiken, SC 29802 USA
3Daniel B. Warnell School of Forest Resources, University of Georgia, Athens, GA 30602 USA

Abstract: Temporary reductions in population density (i.e., bottlenecks) can lead to reduced levels of genetic variation and fitness. Chickamauga Battlefield National Military Park, Georgia, was stocked with 12 white-tailed deer (Odocoileus virginianus) during 1971 to compensate for a paucity of deer in the park and surrounding lands. By 1991 the Chickamauga deer population had increased to an estimated 200-500 individuals. We examined the genetic effects of this population bottleneck by determining the following measures of genetic diversity: mean multilocus heterozygosity (H), mean number of alleles per locus (A), and percentage of polymorphic loci (P). Tissue samples collected from 135 deer during 1991-1992 were subjected to starch-gel electrophoresis at 37 presumptive loci. Genetic variation in the Chickamauga herd (H=0.084, A=1.54, P=29.73) was not significantly different from that observed by other researchers in Texas deer (the original stocking source for Chickamauga deer) or five other unrestocked ("native") herds in the southeastern United States. Two loci (Aat-2, 6-Pgd) were monomorphic in the Chickamauga herd but polymorphic in native herds. Rapid growth of the restocked Chickamauga herd in a protected habitat, and potential gene flow from nearby relict deer populations, may have been responsible for preventing substantial loss of genetic variation in the Chickamauga deer population.

Keywords: genetic variation, population bottleneck, restoration, white-tailed deer

SREL Reprint #2346

Ratnaswamy, M.J., M.H. Smith, R.J. Warren, C.L. Rogers, and K.A.K. Stromayer. 1999. Genetic effects of a population bottleneck on a restored deer herd in a National Military Park. Natural Areas Journal 19:41-46.

This information was provided by the University of Georgia's Savannah River Ecology Laboratory (srel.uga.edu).