Genetic Diversity among Wild Herbivore Species in Tanzania

Abstract

Monitoring of genetic structure of populations is desirable in order to obtain information about the degree of genetic variation, which exits within and between the remaining populations. For wildlife species, this information  is vital     in planning future conservation and management   strategies.   However, currently, there are no published reports regarding the genetic structure/diversity within and between existing wildlife populations in Tanzania. The current study report a genetic data obtained by PCR-EFLP of conserved regions of mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) using a single restriction enzyme. Two mtDNA markers, mt246 and mt700 targeting the control (D-loop) and cytochrome b gene regions of mitochondrial genome, and Rsal restriction  enzyme were  used  to  generate  species-specific  reference DNA fragment  patterns using  fresh  meat from Wildebeest,  Zebra, Thompson's gazelle, Impala, Reedbuck, Kongoni, Oryx,  Warthog, Buffalo, Hippopotamus, Cattle, sheep, Goats and Pigs. The DNA fragment patterns were used to calculate genetic divergence, similarity and pair wise number of nucleotide substitutions between different wild and domestic species.  The  average  percentage  differences between species were found to be 59% using mt700 and 71%, using mt 246 markers, respectively, while the average percentage similarities using the same markers-were 41% and 29%, respectively. The average number of pair wise nucleotide substitutions was 0.23 and 0.19 using mt700 and mt246, respectively. These data provide information on the genetic diversity among major wild herbivore species in Tanzania on these two genes and calls for further studies to explicitly elucidate the extent and trend of genetic diversity among wildlife population