Genetic diversity, gene flow and drift in Bavarian red deer populations (Cervus elaphus)

The red deer (Cervus elaphus) populationof Bavaria in Southern Germany was severelyreduced during the 19th century due toover-hunting. The species has since recoveredwithin designated areas. Subsequent habitatfragmentation presumably has changed thegenetic structure of Bavarian red deer.In order to assess the genetic diversity, weanalysed samples obtained from nine differentBavarian and two adjacent (Thueringen andCzech-Republic) red deer populations,genotyping 19 microsatellite loci. Our analysesrevealed moderate and significant differencesin diversity. Referring to assignment tests,the genetic differentiation of Bavarian reddeer was sufficient to assign an individual'sorigin to the correct population at an averageof 91.6%. The correlation of genetic andgeographic distance matrices revealed noevidence for isolation by distance. Thecoalescent model analysis suggests that thegenetic structure used to be characterized by adrift–gene flow equilibrium and is nowinfluenced by drift and disruption of the geneflow. Only three of the examined populationsshowed a probability of less than 10% that twogenes within these populations share a commonancestor (FIS-value). Twopopulations had high FIS values,indicating the influence of drift.Additionally, the intrapopulation indicesrevealed a low variability in thesepopulations. The estimated effective populationsizes (Ne) were generally in thesame range as the actual population sizes. Theinbreeding rates, based on the estimated Ne, and the inbreeding coefficientssuggested that the Bavarian red deerpopulations are in a stable state.