Planning tiger recovery: Understanding intraspecific variation for effective conservation.

ABSTRACT: Although significantly more money is spent on the conservation of tigers than on any other threatened species, today only 3200 to 3600 tigers roam the forests of Asia, occupying only 7% of their historical range. Despite the global significance of and interest in tiger conservation, global approaches to plan tiger recovery are partly impeded by the lack of a consensus on the number of tiger subspecies or management units, because a comprehensive analysis of tiger variation is lacking. We analyzed variation among all nine putative tiger subspecies, using extensive data sets of several traits [morphological (craniodental and pelage), ecological, molecular]. Our analyses revealed little variation and large overlaps in each trait among putative subspecies, and molecular data showed extremely l

SUBMITTER: Wilting A 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC4640610 | biostudies-literature | 2015 Jun

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature