Open AccessImpact of population bottlenecks on genetic variation and the importance of life‐history; a case study of the northern elephant seal
Author(s) -
HOELZEL A. RUS
Publication year - 1999
Publication title -
biological journal of the linnean society
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.906
H-Index - 112
eISSN - 1095-8312
pISSN - 0024-4066
DOI - 10.1111/j.1095-8312.1999.tb01156.x
Subject(s) - biology , bottleneck , population bottleneck , population , southern elephant seal , genetic variation , polygyny , variation (astronomy) , fur seal , elephant seal , reproduction , population growth , ecology , evolutionary biology , zoology , demography , microsatellite , genetics , engineering , allele , physics , sociology , astrophysics , gene , programming language , documentation , computer science , embedded system
This paper reviews some of the important factors related to the impact of population bottlenecks, using the northern elephant seal (Mirounga angustirostrus) as a case study for illustration. The northern elephant seal was hunted extensively in the 19th century and forced through a bottleneck of approximately 10–20 seals. All measures of molecular genetic variation show current levels for the northern elephant seal to be low. Levels of genetic variation were compared with expectations based on a simulation model that recapitulates demographic growth, based on age‐specific data on reproduction and mortality. Predictions from the simulation model are then presented to illustrate the importance of differences in life‐history strategy and skewed reproductive success. Either high reproductive skew (e.g. polygyny) or a low growth rate in a population can increase the impact of a bottleneck on molecular variation. Severe population bottlenecks can also disrupt aspects of developmental stability and thereby increase the fluctuating asymmetry and variability of quantitative traits. A comparison of skulls collected before and after the bottleneck showed this to have occurred for some elephant seal quantitative characters.