Can Malayan tapir's extinction be prevented? A genetic approach to its conservation

2022年5月至8月，研究人员前往马来西亚半岛，利用本研究开发的38个新的微卫星标记，对41个野生驼鸟样本进行了微卫星分析。对来自日本研究机构的6只马来亚种群进行了基因组分析，其中每两只都可能起源于马来西亚半岛、泰国和苏门答腊岛，以推断进入全新世以来历史上有效种群规模的变化，最低可达2000-4000，以及10000年前东南亚大陆和苏门答腊岛种群的分裂。利用这六个基因组和两个公共基因组，开发了一个24k单核苷酸多态的定制小组，目标是对基因功能有中等到高度影响的突变。研究发现，苏门答腊岛样本的功能丧失突变显著高于马来西亚半岛和泰国半岛的样本。从纯合性分析来看，马来西亚和苏门答腊岛的样本也显示出较高的近亲交配系数。需要更多的样本来澄清这一点。这些成果在三次国际会议上公布，并获得了最佳海报奖。一篇科学文章发表在《全球生态与保护》上。2023年3月举办了野生动物保护和生物信息学讲习班。一名马来西亚政府野生动物研究官员应邀到日本参加研讨会，作为能力建设的手段，并促进京都大学野生动物研究中心与马来西亚半岛野生动植物系之间的研究联系。

From May to August 2022, a research trip was made to Peninsular Malaysia to conduct microsatellite analysis of 41 wild tapir samples using 38 novel microsatellite markers developed in this study. Genomic analyses of six Malayan tapirs from Japan institutions, each two with putative origins from Peninsular Malaysia, Thailand, and Sumatra, was conducted to infer the changes in historical effective population size that was as low as 2000-4000 upon entering Holocene and a population split between the mainland Southeast Asia and Sumatran populations >10k years ago. Using the six genomes and two public genomes, a custom panel of 24k single nucleotide polymorphism was developed, which targets mutations that are of moderate to high impacts to the gene functions. It was found that Sumatran samples showed a significantly higher loss-of-function mutations than the Peninsular Malaysian- and Thailand-origin samples. Malaysian and Sumatran samples also show higher inbreeding coefficients from the analysis of runs of homozygosity. More samples are required to clarify this. These results were presented three international conferences and a best poster prize was won. A scientific article was published in Global Ecology and Conservation. A Wildlife Conservation and Bioinformatics Workshop was held in March 2023. A Malaysian government wildlife research officer was invited to Japan to participate in the workshop as a mean for capacity building and for fostering the research connection between Wildlife Research Center of Kyoto University and the department of wildlife in Peninsular Malaysia.