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Grey partridge restocking; unravelling practices in North and South
range edges
Abstract
The grey partridge population has experienced significant declines
across Europe, largely due to agricultural intensification and loss of
habitat, leading to conservation actions such as Red-listing in the UK
and hunting bans in Greece. The genetics of Balkan and Scottish
populations remain largely unexplored; genetic analyses are essential to
evaluate the impact of past restocking efforts on wild populations, as
breeding between released and wild-living partridges may complicate
recovery efforts. In this study, we sample wild and farmed individuals
of grey partridge from the Balkans (Greece, North Macedonia) and the
United Kingdom (UK) and employ 2300 SNPs, eight microsatellites and two
mitochondrial markers to investigate the genetic structure and diversity
of their populations and the impact of past restocking activities. We
reveal a clear distinction between two clades, an Eastern and a Western,
as in previous studies, with wild birds from Greece and the UK
classified to each clade respectively. However, birds from North
Macedonia belonged to either clade, suggesting a contact zone between
the two or a genetic legacy of past restocking practices. The captive
stock in Greece and the UK is clearly of Western origin, with minor
introgression of the Eastern clade being detected. Finally, an
informative SNP marker panel is presented that accurately assigns each
individual to either the Eastern or Western clade and will serve as a
valuable tool for monitoring population structure, guiding conservation
efforts, and assessing the impact of restocking activities on grey
partridge populations.