The genetic legacy of the first successful reintroduction of a mammal to Britain: Founder events and attempted genetic rescue in Scotland's beaver population

Abstract

Abstract Conservation translocations often inherently involve a risk of genetic diversity loss, and thus loss of adaptive potential, but this risk is rarely quantified or monitored through time. The reintroduction of beavers to Scotland, via the Scottish Beaver Trial in Knapdale, is an example of a translocation that took place in the absence of genetic data for the founder individuals and resulted in a small and suspected to be genetically depauperate population. In this study we use a high‐density SNP panel to assess the genetic impact of that initial translocation and the effect of subsequent reinforcement translocations using animals from a different genetic source to the original founders. We demonstrate that the initial translocation did, indeed, lead to low genetic diversity (Ho = 0.052) and high mean kinship (KING‐robust = 0.159) in the Knapdale population compared to other beaver populations. We also show that the reinforcement translocations have succeeded in increasing genetic diversity (Ho = 0.196) and reducing kinship (KING robust = 0.028) in Knapdale. As yet, there is no evidence of admixture between the two genetic lineages that are now present in Knapdale and such admixture is necessary to realise the full genetic benefits of the reinforcement and for genetic reinforcement and then rescue to occur; future genetic monitoring will be required to assess whether this has happened. We note that, should admixture occur, the Knapdale population will harbour combinations of genetic diversity not currently seen elsewhere in Eurasian beavers, posing important considerations for the future management of this population. We consider our results in the wider context of beaver conservation throughout Scotland and the rest of Britain, and advocate for more proactive genetic sampling of all founders to allow the full integration of genetic data into translocation planning in general.

Keywords

• conservation
• genetic rescue
• mammal
• reintroduction
• relatedness
• translocation