This is a collaborative research endevor with Travis Livieri of
Prairie Wildlife Research.
Graduate Student: Cindy Maddox
Cindy is currently employed as a lab supervisor at Goucher College
Our goal is to try and examine the reproductive variation of male blackfooted ferrets in the wild.
The reintroduced populations were started with a founding population of 7 individuals. The low
number of founding individuals will have removed a large proportion of the genetic variation of the
species. While in the captive breeding program matings can be arranged to minimize the further loss of
genetic variation. However, once animals are released back into the wild there are no controls over
the creation of mating pairs. In captivity yearling males, while they will mate rarely
are successful at impregnating the females. In the wild males have a high mortality rate so there
are few older adult males. If age-related rate of impregnation in the wild is similar to that in
captivity the majority of offspring are likely fathered by a relatively small number of males. This
will result in a further reduction in genetic variation.
We are interested in trying to quantify the reproductive success of individual male and female
blackfooted ferrets in the Buffalo Gap National Grasslands
release site. Long term survival of the
blackfooted ferrets will require the maintenance of the remaining genetic variation.
Currently, the majority of the ferrets have a PIT tag placed in them and we are collecting spatial
data on location . We are also interested in using genetics to estimate movement patterns across
the landscape of the Buffalo Gap National Grasslands.
Funding provided by Central Michigan University,
The American Museum of Natural History, and Sigma Xi.
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