title: Defining management units for European captive aardvarks.
abstract: The Aardvark (Orycteropus afer) is a very unique, but relatively widespread African mammal. Although some morphological variation has been observed between forest and savannah populations and among different African regions, they are all considered as a single species. However, no modern taxonomic revision is available. All captive aardvarks in Europe are believed to stem from wild born animals from Namibia, but recently several new wild-caught aardvarks from Tanzania have been integrated into the captive population. This raises the question, whether these specimens should be interbred with the existing captive population or whether there is a risk of outbreeding depression. We studied the genetic structure of the captive populations by sequencing two mitochondrial genes (cytochrome b and 16S rRNA) to assess the degree of genetic differentiation between the two source regions. Our data suggest that the aardvarks kept in European zoos belong to the same phylogenetic (mitochondrial) lineage as the differentiation in the two studied mitochondrial markers was extremely low. A more comprehensive analysis of a larger sample with well documented origin (covering the complete geographic range) and with more sensitive genetic markers is needed to infer any final conclusions concerning the aardvark's taxonomy and identification of suitable aardvark management units.
authors.affiliation: Department of Zoology, Faculty of Science, University of South Bohemia, České Budějovice, Czech Republic.
authors.forename: Ludmila
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Pohlová
authors.forename: Pauline
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Schepsky
authors.forename: Thomas
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Lehmann
authors.forename: Axel
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Hochkirch
authors.forename: Renata
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Masopustová
authors.forename: Jaroslav
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Simek
authors.forename: Wineke
authors.initials: W
authors.lastname: Schoo
authors.forename: Roman
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Vodička
authors.forename: Jan
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Robovský
mesh_terms: D000822:Animal Husbandry / Q000379:methods*; D000818:Animals; D000836:Animals, Zoo / Q000235:genetics*; D001483:Base Sequence; D045303:Cytochromes b / Q000235:genetics; D005060:Europe; D014644:Genetic Variation; D005828:Genetics, Population; D008969:Molecular Sequence Data; D009276:Namibia; D012336:RNA, Ribosomal, 16S / Q000235:genetics; D017422:Sequence Analysis, DNA / Q000662:veterinary; D013045:Species Specificity; D013636:Tanzania; D004490:Xenarthra / Q000235:genetics*
chemical_list: D012336:RNA, Ribosomal, 16S; D045303:Cytochromes b
keywords: Orycteropus; genetic structure; mitochondrial; taxonomy