Identification of Genetically Important Individuals of the Rediscovered Floreana Galapagos Giant Tortoise (Chelonoidis elephantopus) Provide Founders for Species Restoration Program.

ABSTRACT: Species are being lost at an unprecedented rate due to human-driven environmental changes. The cases in which species declared extinct can be revived are rare. However, here we report that a remote volcano in the Galápagos Islands hosts many giant tortoises with high ancestry from a species previously declared as extinct: Chelonoidis elephantopus or the Floreana tortoise. Of 150 individuals with distinctive morphology sampled from the volcano, genetic analyses revealed that 65 had C. elephantopus ancestry and thirty-two were translocated from the volcano's slopes to a captive breeding center. A genetically informed captive breeding program now being initiated will, over the next decades, return C. elephantopus tortoises to Floreana Island to serve as engineers of the island's ecosystems. I

SUBMITTER: Miller JM 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC5597637 | biostudies-literature | 2017 Sep

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature