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Janecka, J.E.; Janecka, M.J.; Helgen, K.M.; Murphy, W.J.;,
The validity of three snow leopard subspecies: response to Senn et al
2018 Heredity (120): 586-590
We recently published the first phylogeographic analysis of snow leopards (_Panthera uncia_) supporting delineation of three subspecies: _P. u. irbis _(northern-Mongolia), _P. u. uncia_ (western-Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Pakistan, northwestern India), and_ P. u. uncioides_ (central-Nepal, Bhutan, China) (Janecka et al. 2017). We analyzed 70 individuals from 21 geographically dispersed sampling sites with 33 nuclear microsatellite loci and 683-bp of mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA). We implemented methods comparable to those used in previous well-accepted studies of felid phylogeography (e.g., Uphyrkina et al. 2001, Luo et al. 2004, Bertola et al. 2015). Within these subspecies, we also identified management units (MU) for which policies should be developed, consistent with the political, economic, and cultural issues relevant to the respective MU. Our taxonomic revision is of great importance to the conservation of snow leopards, and other high-altitude species of Asia.
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