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Threats from wildlife trade: The importance of genetic data in safeguarding the endangered Four-eyed Turtle (Sacalia quadriocellata)
- Source :
- Nature Conservation, Vol 41, Iss, Pp 91-111 (2020), Nature Conservation 41: 91-111
- Publication Year :
- 2020
- Publisher :
- Pensoft Publishers, 2020.
-
Abstract
- Wildlife trade has been considered one of the largest threats to biodiversity in Southeast Asia. Many vertebrates, such as pangolins, elephants and turtles have been heavily hunted as a result of high demand from emerging markets in China and other countries in the region. In Vietnam, over-exploitation of turtles over several decades to supply the international trade has extirpated numerous populations and driven several species to the brink of extinction. To reverse this trend, conservation measures, such as re-introduction of confiscated or captive-bred animals to their native habitats, should be implemented to recover severely declined local populations. For species with a complex phylogeographic structure, however, it is crucial to understand geographic patterns of genetically-distinct populations to avoid releasing animals of unknown origin to wrong localities. In this study, we investigate the phylogeographic pattern of the Four-eyed Turtle (Sacalia quadriocellata), a widely traded species, which occurs in southern China, northern and central Laos and much of Vietnam, using samples with known localities and those collected from the local trade. Our range-wide phylogenetic and network study, based on the complete mitochondrial cytochrome b gene, recovered at least three major clades and seven subclades within the species range. Amongst these, two subclades, one from northern Annamites, Vietnam and the other from north-eastern Laos, are newly discovered. The fine scale phylogeographic analysis helped us to assign misidentified sequences from GenBank and those from confiscated animals with unknown origin to well-defined geographic populations. The results highlight the importance of incorporating samples collected from the local trade and the wild in genetic analyses to support both ex-situ and in-situ conservation programmes of highly-threatened species in accordance with the IUCN’s One Plan Approach.
- Subjects :
- 0106 biological sciences
Reptilia
lcsh:QH1-199.5
Endangered species
Safeguarding
lcsh:General. Including nature conservation, geographical distribution
010603 evolutionary biology
01 natural sciences
law.invention
03 medical and health sciences
Sacalia
Lao PDR
law
lcsh:QH540-549.5
Animalia
Turtle (robot)
Chordata
Sacalia quadriocellata
030304 developmental biology
Nature and Landscape Conservation
0303 health sciences
biology
conservation
Genetic data
biology.organism_classification
wildlife trade
Geoemydidae
conservation cytochrome b Lao PDR Sacalia quadriocellata Vietnam wildlife trade
Fishery
Wildlife trade
Geography
cytochrome b
Vietnam
Testudines
lcsh:Ecology
Subjects
Details
- Language :
- English
- ISSN :
- 13143301
- Volume :
- 41
- Database :
- OpenAIRE
- Journal :
- Nature Conservation
- Accession number :
- edsair.doi.dedup.....47178d0298c4d5ed78fec622be2539bf