J Hered 2017 Sep;108(6):597-607
Department of Biological Sciences, Duquesne University, Pittsburgh, PA 15282; Institute of Forest Ecology, Environment and Protection, Chinese Academy of Forestry, Beijing, China; The Key Laboratory of Forest Ecology and Environment of State Forestry Administration, Beijing, China; Institute of General and Experimental Biology, Mongolian Academy of Sciences, Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia, Irbis Mongolia, Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia; Bhutan Foundation, Washington, DC; Wildlife Biology Program, University of Montana, Missoula, MT; Center for Molecular Dynamics, Kathmandu, Nepal; Panthera, New York, NY; Center for Nature and Society, College of Life Sciences, Peking University, Beijing, China; Department of Environmental Science, Policy and Management, University of California, Berkeley, CA; Shan Shui Conservation Center, Beijing, China; Snow Leopard Trust, Seattle, WA; Center for Cellular and Molecular Biology, Hyderabad, India; Trinity College, Hartford, CT; Baltistan Wildlife Conservation and Development Organization, Skardu, Pakistan; Department of Veterinary Integrative Biosciences, College of Veterinary Medicine and Biomedical Sciences, Texas A&M University, College Station, TX; Research Institute of Wildlife Ecology, Vienna, Austria; American Museum of Natural History, New York, NY; Department of Biology, Texas A&M University, College Station, TX; University of Adelaide, Adelaide, Australia; and Snow Leopard Conservancy, Sonoma, CA 95476.
The snow leopard, Panthera uncia, is an elusive high-altitude specialist that inhabits vast, inaccessible habitat across Asia. We conducted the first range-wide genetic assessment of snow leopards based on noninvasive scat surveys. Thirty-three microsatellites were genotyped and a total of 683 bp of mitochondrial DNA sequenced in 70 individuals. Snow leopards exhibited low genetic diversity at microsatellites (AN = 5.8, HO = 0.433, HE = 0.568), virtually no mtDNA variation, and underwent a bottleneck in the Holocene (∼8000 years ago) coinciding with increased temperatures, precipitation, and upward treeline shift in the Tibetan Plateau. Multiple analyses supported 3 primary genetic clusters: (1) Northern (the Altai region), (2) Central (core Himalaya and Tibetan Plateau), and (3) Western (Tian Shan, Pamir, trans-Himalaya regions). Accordingly, we recognize 3 subspecies, Panthera uncia irbis (Northern group), Panthera uncia uncia (Western group), and Panthera uncia uncioides (Central group) based upon genetic distinctness, low levels of admixture, unambiguous population assignment, and geographic separation. The patterns of variation were consistent with desert-basin "barrier effects" of the Gobi isolating the northern subspecies (Mongolia), and the trans-Himalaya dividing the central (Qinghai, Tibet, Bhutan, and Nepal) and western subspecies (India, Pakistan, Tajikistan, and Kyrgyzstan). Hierarchical Bayesian clustering analysis revealed additional subdivision into a minimum of 6 proposed management units: western Mongolia, southern Mongolia, Tian Shan, Pamir-Himalaya, Tibet-Himalaya, and Qinghai, with spatial autocorrelation suggesting potential connectivity by dispersing individuals up to ∼400 km. We provide a foundation for global conservation of snow leopard subspecies, and set the stage for in-depth landscape genetics and genomic studies.