IUCN / SSC Cat Specialist Group - Digital Cat Library |
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| O'Brien, S.J.; Martenson, J.S.; Packer, C.; Herbst, L.; de Vos, V.; Joslin, P.; Ott-Joslin, J.; Wildt, D.E.; Bush, M.E. | |
| Biochemical genetic variation in geographic isolates of African and Asiatic lions | |
| 1987 National Geographic Research (3): 114-124 | |
Electrophoretic variation of 46 to 50 allozyme loci were typed in four African and one Asiatic (Indian) lion populations. The African populations revealed moderate amounts of genetic vatiation compared with other cat species. The lions from the Ngorognoro Crater, a small isolated "island" population within the Serengeti ecosystem in Tanzania, had a reduced level of variability which was a precise subset of the larger founder population of the Serengeti plains. The Asiatic lion population from the Gir Forest Sanctuary in the state of Gujarat in western India is a relict population of less than 250 individuals which descended from a much more widely distributed subspecies early in the 19th century. The Giro lions were genetically monomorphic at each of 47 typed loci, suggesting a drastic population bottleneck followed by inbreeding in their recent history. The allozyme genetic distance estimates between African lion populations and between Asian and African subspecies were low and comparable with the distance values between conspecific mouse populations or between human racial groups. These results suggest that the two subspecies shared a common ancestor recently, estimated at between 50'000 and 200'000 years before the present. |
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