The Asian crested ibis Nipponia nippon is one of the world's most endangered species. Except for the Sanxii population from China, it is known that all of the crested ibis populations from East Asia have been extinguished. In these days, most of them ...
The Asian crested ibis Nipponia nippon is one of the world's most endangered species. Except for the Sanxii population from China, it is known that all of the crested ibis populations from East Asia have been extinguished. In these days, most of them are being inbred as captive populations in China, South Korea, and Japan, which caused their low expected genetic diversity. Microsatellite markers are well known as a suitable DNA marker for exploring genetic diversity among captive populations of a variety of endangered species. In the present study, ten microsatellite markers were developed for the captive populations of the South Korean crested ibis, which were employed to examine the level of genetic diversity with the two founders from Sanxii, China and the 70 descendants of them. As a result, the mean number of gene diversity, observed heterozygosity, and expected heterozygosity of the captive population were 0.70, 0.84, and 0.70 respectively. It revealed that the captive population of South Korea is as genetically more stable than we expected. In addition, the principal coordinates analysis and genetic structure analyses showed that the captive population of N. nippon can be divided into the two different genetic groups. The developed microsatellite markers here could be helpful for crested ibis conservation in East Asian countries such as China and Japan as well as South Korea.