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Link to original content: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/26601191
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. 2015 Jun 26;1(5):e1400175.
doi: 10.1126/sciadv.1400175. eCollection 2015 Jun.

Planning tiger recovery: Understanding intraspecific variation for effective conservation

Andreas Wilting  1 , Alexandre Courtiol  1 , Per Christiansen  2 , Jürgen Niedballa  1 , Anne K Scharf  1 , Ludovic Orlando  3 , Niko Balkenhol  1 , Heribert Hofer  1 , Stephanie Kramer-Schadt  1 , Jörns Fickel  4 , Andrew C Kitchener  5
Affiliations

Planning tiger recovery: Understanding intraspecific variation for effective conservation

Andreas Wilting et al. Sci Adv. .

Abstract

Although significantly more money is spent on the conservation of tigers than on any other threatened species, today only 3200 to 3600 tigers roam the forests of Asia, occupying only 7% of their historical range. Despite the global significance of and interest in tiger conservation, global approaches to plan tiger recovery are partly impeded by the lack of a consensus on the number of tiger subspecies or management units, because a comprehensive analysis of tiger variation is lacking. We analyzed variation among all nine putative tiger subspecies, using extensive data sets of several traits [morphological (craniodental and pelage), ecological, molecular]. Our analyses revealed little variation and large overlaps in each trait among putative subspecies, and molecular data showed extremely low diversity because of a severe Late Pleistocene population decline. Our results support recognition of only two subspecies: the Sunda tiger, Panthera tigris sondaica, and the continental tiger, Panthera tigris tigris, which consists of two (northern and southern) management units. Conservation management programs, such as captive breeding, reintroduction initiatives, or trans-boundary projects, rely on a durable, consistent characterization of subspecies as taxonomic units, defined by robust multiple lines of scientific evidence rather than single traits or ad hoc descriptions of one or few specimens. Our multiple-trait data set supports a fundamental rethinking of the conventional tiger taxonomy paradigm, which will have profound implications for the management of in situ and ex situ tiger populations and boost conservation efforts by facilitating a pragmatic approach to tiger conservation management worldwide.

Keywords: Felidae; Management Units; One Plan Approach; Subspecies; Taxonomy.

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Figures

Fig. 1
Fig. 1. Variation among and phenotypic space across all nine putative subspecies of tigers.
(A) Former distribution of the nine putative subspecies and occurrence records used for the ecological analysis. (B1 to E3) Multivariate analyses of skull traits [(B1 to B3) females; (C1 to C3) males], pelage (D1 to D3) and ecological preferences (E1 to E3). (B1 to E1) The 1.5 inertia ellipse for all nine putative subspecies displayed on the plane defined by the first two principal components; (B2 to E2) unrooted binary neighbor-joining trees based on the matrices of Euclidean distance between individuals in the multivariate space defined by all principal components; (B3 to E3) same as in (B2 to E2) but with distances being measured between the centroids of each putative subspecies with bootstrap values of groupings. (F) Radial tree of the maximum likelihood analysis of 3968 bp of mtDNA (see Fig. 2).
Fig. 2
Fig. 2. Phylogenetic analyses of all nine putative subspecies using 3968 bp of mtDNA.
(A1 and A2) Maximum likelihood tree of intraspecific variation among all putative tiger subspecies in relation to three pantherine cat species [snow leopard (Panthera uncia), leopard (Panthera pardus), and clouded leopard (Neofelis nebulosa)]. Values above or below branches show maximum likelihood and Bayesian inference bootstrap supports. (A1) Maximum likelihood tree including three pantherine cat species as outgroups. (A2) Enlargement of the maximum likelihood tree part showing the tigers. Roman numerals indicate bootstrap supports of nodes for skull {females} / skull {males} / skin / ecological preferences. Abbreviations for putative subspecies are given in Table 1. * indicates that one additional putative subspecies clusters with this group. (B) Haplotype network. The size of the circles is proportional to haplotype frequency. Connecting lines between haplotypes represent one mutational step unless indicated otherwise by numbers. (C) Bayesian demographic skyline reconstruction of tigers for the last 1 million years.
Fig. 3
Fig. 3. Tiger variation for the two taxonomic units (subspecies) and three management units recognized by the current study.
(A1 and B1) Former distribution of the (A1) taxonomic units and (B1) management units. (A2 to B5) The 1.5 inertia ellipses of the multivariate analyses displayed on the plane defined by the first two principal components for (A2 to A5) two taxonomic units and (B2 to B5) management units for the different tiger traits.
Fig. 4
Fig. 4. Pairwise comparison of the two tiger subspecies P. tigris tigris and P. tigris sondaica recognized by the current study.
(A and B) For skulls [(A) females; (B) males], the six variables that explained most of the variation in tigers in the multivariate analyses are plotted as violin plots. (C and D) For pelage (C) and ecological preferences (D), the three variables that explained most of the variation in tigers are shown. Ordinal and categorical data are shown as bar plots.
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