Dataset Information

Genetic Diversity Analysis of Mitochondrial Cytb Gene, Phylogeny and Phylogeography of Protected Griffon Vulture (Gyps fulvus) from Serbia.

ABSTRACT: Once a widespread and common species across the region of southeast Europe, the Griffon vulture is now confined to small and isolated populations across the Balkan Peninsula. The population from Serbia with 290 couples represents its biggest and most viable population that can serve as an important reservoir of genetic diversity from which the birds can be used for the region's reintroduction or recolonization programs. To estimate the level of genetic diversity, the mitochondrial Cytb gene from 58 unrelated birds sampled during the marking in the nests was sequenced and compared to the homologous Griffon vulture sequences available in publicly accessible online databases. Phylogeographic analysis based on Cytb sequences showed that the most frequent haplotype is found in all Griffon vulture populations and that each population possesses private haplotypes. Our data suggest that the Griffon vulture population from Serbia should be used as a source population for restocking and reintroduction programs in the region. The observed genetic differentiation between the populations from the Iberian and Balkan Peninsulas suggest that the introduction of foreign birds from remote populations should be avoided and that birds from indigenous or neighboring populations, if available, should be used instead.

SUBMITTER: Davidovic S

PROVIDER: S-EPMC8880743 | biostudies-literature | 2022 Jan

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

ACCESS DATA

Publications

Genetic Diversity Analysis of Mitochondrial Cytb Gene, Phylogeny and Phylogeography of Protected Griffon Vulture (Gyps fulvus) from Serbia.

Davidović Slobodan S Marinković Saša S Kukobat Mila M Mihajlović Milica M Tanasić Vanja V Hribšek Irena I Tanasković Marija M Stamenković-Radak Marina M

Life (Basel, Switzerland) 20220122 2

Once a widespread and common species across the region of southeast Europe, the Griffon vulture is now confined to small and isolated populations across the Balkan Peninsula. The population from Serbia with 290 couples represents its biggest and most viable population that can serve as an important reservoir of genetic diversity from which the birds can be used for the region's reintroduction or recolonization programs. To estimate the level of genetic diversity, the mitochondrial Cytb ge ...[more]

PMID: 35207453

Similar Datasets

Project description:BackgroundOnce a widespread species across the region of Southeast Europe, the Griffon vulture is now confined to small and isolated populations across the Balkan Peninsula. The population from Serbia represents its biggest and most viable population that can serve as an important reservoir of genetic diversity from which the birds can be used for the region's reintroduction programmes. The available genetic data for this valuable population are scarce and as a protected species that belongs to the highly endangered vulture group, it needs to be well described so that it can be properly managed and used as a restocking population. Considering the serious recent bottleneck event that the Griffon vulture population from Serbia experienced we estimated the overall relatedness among the birds from this population. Sex ratio, another important parameter that shows the vitality and strength of the population was evaluated as well.MethodsDuring the annual monitoring that was performed in the period from 2013-2021, we collected blood samples from individual birds that were marked in the nests. In total, 169 samples were collected and each was used for molecular sexing while 58 presumably unrelated birds from different nests were used for inbreeding and relatedness analyses. The relatedness was estimated using both biparentally (10 microsatellite loci) and uniparentally (Cytb and D-loop I of mitochondrial DNA) inherited markers.ResultsThe level of inbreeding was relatively high and on average it was 8.3% while the mean number of relatives for each bird was close to three. The sex ratio was close to 1:1 and for the analysed period of 9 years, it didn't demonstrate a statistically significant deviation from the expected ratio of 1:1, suggesting that this is a stable and healthy population. Our data suggest that, even though a relatively high level of inbreeding can be detected among the individual birds, the Griffon vulture population from Serbia can be used as a source population for restocking and reintroduction programmes in the region. These data combined with previously observed genetic differentiation between the populations from the Iberian and Balkan Peninsulas suggest that the introduction of foreign birds should be avoided and that local birds should be used instead.

Project description:BackgroundLactic acid bacteria (LAB) are part of the gut microbiota and produce ribosomally synthesized antimicrobial peptides or bacteriocins with interest as natural food preservatives and therapeutic agents. Bacteriocin-producing LAB are also attractive as probiotics. Griffon vultures (Gyps fulvus subspecies fulvus) are scavenger birds that feed almost exclusively on carrion without suffering apparent ill effects. Therefore, griffon vultures might be considered a reservoir of bacteriocin-producing lactic acid bacteria (LAB) with potential biotechnological applications.ResultsGriffon vulture feces were screened for LAB with antimicrobial activity, genes encoding bacteriocins, potential virulence determinants, susceptibility to antibiotics, genotyping and characterization of bacteriocins. In this study, from 924 LAB evaluated 332 isolates (36 %) showed direct antimicrobial activity against Gram-positive bacteria only. The molecular identification of the most antagonistic 95 isolates showed that enterococci was the largest LAB group with antimicrobial activity (91 %) and E. faecium (40 %) the most identified antagonistic species. The evaluation of the presence of bacteriocin structural genes in 28 LAB isolates with the highest bacteriocinogenic activity in their supernatants determined that most enterococcal isolates (75 %) encoded multiple bacteriocins, being enterocin A (EntA) the largest identified (46 %) bacteriocin. Most enterococci (88 %) were resistant to multiple antibiotics. ERIC-PCR and MLST techniques permitted genotyping and recognition of the potential safety of the bacteriocinogenic enterococci. A multiple-step chromatographic procedure, determination of the N-terminal amino acid sequence of purified bacteriocins by Edman degradation and a MALDI TOF/TOF tandem MS procedure permitted characterization of bacteriocins present in supernatants of producer cells.ConclusionsEnterococci was the largest LAB group with bacteriocinogenic activity isolated from griffon vulture feces. Among the isolates, E. faecium M3K31 has been identified as producer of enterocin HF (EntHF), a bacteriocin with remarkable antimicrobial activity against most evaluated Listeria spp. and of elevated interest as a natural food preservative. E. faecium M3K31 would be also considered a safe probiotic strain for use in animal nutrition.

Project description:BACKGROUND:The need to obtain food is a critical proximate driver of an organism's movement that shapes the foraging and survival of individual animals. Consequently, the relationship between hunger and foraging has received considerable attention, leading to the common conception that hunger primarily enhances a "food-intake maximization" (FIMax) strategy and intensive search. A complementary explanation, however, suggests a trade-off with precautions taken to reduce the risk of physiological collapse from starvation, under a strategy we denote as "energy-expenditure minimization" (EEMin). The FImax-EEmin trade-off may interact with the forager's hunger level to shape a complex (non-monotonic) response pattern to increasing hunger. Yet, this important trade-off has rarely been investigated, particularly in free-ranging wild animals. We explored how hunger affects the movements of adult griffon vultures (Gyps fulvus) in southern Israel. Transmitters combining GPS and accelerometers provided high-resolution data on vultures' movements and behavior, enabling the identification of feeding events and the estimation of food deprivation periods (FDPs, measured in days), which is used as a proxy for hunger. RESULTS:Data from 47 vultures, tracked for 339 ± 36 days, reveal high variability in FDPs. While flight speed, flight straightness and the proportion of active flights were invariant in relation to food deprivation, a clear hump-shaped response was found for daily flight distances, maximal displacements and flight elevation. These movement characteristics increased during the first five days of the FDP sequence and decreased during the following five days. These characteristics also differed between short FDPs of up to four days, and the first four days of longer FDP sequences. These results suggest a switch from FIMax to EEMin strategies along the FDP sequence. They also indicate that vultures' response to hunger affected the eventual duration of the FDP. During winter (the vultures' incubation period characterized by unfavorable soaring meteorological conditions), the vultures' FIMax response was less intensive and resulted in longer starvation periods, while, in summer, more intensive FIMax response to hunger resulted in shorter FDPs. CONCLUSIONS:Our results show a flexible, non-monotonic response of free-ranging wild animals to increasing hunger levels, reflecting a trade-off between increasing motivation to find food and the risk of starvation. The proposed trade-off offers a unifying perspective to apparently contradictory or case-specific empirical findings.

Dataset Information

Genetic Diversity Analysis of Mitochondrial Cytb Gene, Phylogeny and Phylogeography of Protected Griffon Vulture (Gyps fulvus) from Serbia.

Publications

Genetic Diversity Analysis of Mitochondrial <i>Cytb</i> Gene, Phylogeny and Phylogeography of Protected Griffon Vulture (<i>Gyps fulvus</i>) from Serbia.

Similar Datasets

OmicsDI is part of the ELIXIR infrastructure

Tweets