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Abstract

American martens (Martes americana) were extirpated from the Lower Peninsula of Michigan as a result of overharvest for fur and habitat loss in the early 1900s. More sustainable logging practices, forest regeneration, and improved understanding of wildlife habitat requirements, subsequently led to suitable marten habitat restoration within the Lower Peninsula. In the mid- 1980s in an attempt to re-establish a viable population in the Northern Lower Peninsula, 36 martens were reintroduced into the Manistee National Forest (MNF). In the 2011 summer field season we conducted a pilot study investigating the genetic structure of populations in Ward Hills and Caberfae in the MNF. We live trapped seven martens in Ward Hills (4 female, 3 male) and 4 martens in Caberfae (1 female, 3 male). We collected blood and hair samples for genetic analysis during health assessments. Hair snares were also deployed in Caberfae resulting in hair samples from 17 red squirrels (Tamiasciurus hudsonicus), 10 unidentified rodent and 8 possible martens. We extracted DNA from marten blood samples and amplified 6 microsatellite loci using the polymerase chain reaction. Using the program KINGROUP (Konovalov et al. 2004), we determined whether pairs of individuals were more likely to be parent-offspring, full-siblings or unrelated. We found 3 martens in Caberfae and 2 martens in Ward Hills who were more likely to be parent-offspring than unrelated, and 5 martens in Ward Hills that were more likely to be full-siblings than unrelated. We calculated FST, a measure of genetic differentiation between the two populations, using program Arlequin (version 3.5) and found an FST of 0.141 with a p-value of 0.05, indicating that there was moderate genetic differentiation between the sites. These results are preliminary, but suggest restricted dispersal between these sites, with some loss of genetic diversity.

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