The influence of genealogical characteristics on Derby elands´ striping

Zuzana Holubová

Bachelor's thesis

Abstract:

Animal coloration reflects evolutionary adaptation of species to their habitat or protection against parasites and predators, and represents an ideal tool for studying evolutionary changes generating intraspecific and interspecific differences. Derby eland(Taurotragus derbianus)is an even-toed ungulate with a small range in Central and Western Africa and is divided into two subspecies. The western subspecies (Taurotragus derbianus derbianus) is classified as "critically endangered" and its population consists of about 200 wild individuals living only in the Niokolo-Koba National Park and cca 100 individuals in human care in Bandia and Fathala Reserves in Senegal. The eastern subspescies (Taurotragus derbianus gigas) with the population of 15-20 000 animals in the wild and cca 50 individuals in captivity in considered as "least concern". However, the small populations of the Derby elands kept in human care face a high risk of decrease in genetic variability.The main aim of this thesis was to determine with help of the studbook and photographs of both subspecise, wheter breeding management and possibly dome rapid evolutionary changes in genotypes of individuals can cause also changes in their phenotypic characteristics, specifically in number of stripes on body flanks. We were interested in the influence of pedigree data (mainly cofficient of inbreeding) on striping in western subspecies, if individuals of eastern subspecies in the wild differ in number of stripes from those in human care, and in the end we wanted to find a difference in number of stripes between both subspecies kĺiving in the wild. The analyses confirmed our hypotheses that the number of stripes in the population of Western Derby eland in human care incereases with level of inbreeding, and also that the population of eastern subspecies from human care have more stripes than the wild population. The results also confirmed that the wild individuals of western subspecies have more stripes compared to those of eastern subspecies. We could explain the changes in striping by genetic drift, founder effect or for example by sexual selection. However, without a detailed knowledge of genealogy and analyses wit more generations we cannot even exclude the possibility, that all the significant correlations in our studied samples were generated only by chance.

Keywords

Derby eland, striping, coloration, genealogy, ungulates

Language used: English

Date on which the thesis was submitted / produced: 15. 4. 2016

Thesis defence

• Supervisor: Ing. Karolína Brandlová, Ph.D.

Czech University of Life Sciences Prague

Faculty of Tropical AgriSciences

Bachelor programme / field:
Agricultural Specialization / Agriculture in Tropics and Subtropics