Molecular phylogeny and diversity of the Corsican red-legged partridge: hybridization and management issues

The red-legged partridge, Alectoris rufa (Phasianidae), is a game bird hunted throughout its range (Italy, France with Corsica island, Iberian Peninsula). The release in the wild of farmed birds of unknown origin coupled to the hybridization with the exotic chukar (A. chukar: East Mediterranean to East Asia) led to the reduction of the spatial component of genetic variability and to the pollution of A. rufa, respectively. On mainland, A. chukar genes occur according to an Italy-to-Iberian Peninsula decreasing gradient. However, Corsica hosts a number of A. rufa x A. chukar hybrids much lower than nearby Italy. We investigated kinship and diversity of Corsican A. rufa to aid management decisions aimed at containing genetic homogenization in this species. We sampled 97 red-legged partridges in four regions of Corsica with different habitat (semi-arid: Desertu di l’Agriate; rural: Nessa-Felicetu; mountainous: Vivariu-Venacu and Fium’Orbu-Taravu). A subset (n = 60) was sequenced at the mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) Cytochrome-b and compared with 105 samples collected in the continental part of the A. rufa range. Corsican samples were also genotyped at eight loci of the microsatellite DNA to infer intraspecific relationships at a finer scale. We also used microsatellite data from a previous study to compare A. rufa reared in the only island farm with wild conspecifics of this work. Corsican partridges grouped in the only statistically reliable and diverging mtDNA clade. Microsatellites provided evidence for the genetic isolation of Fium’Orbu-Taravu mountain A. rufa population, whose low level of hybridization with A. chukar had been already unveiled. We found that released captive partridges did not enter the wild breeding populations. We suggested banning A. rufa translocation from Corsica to the continent to comply with the disclosed genetic kinship, and viceversa to contrast the spreading of A. chukar pollution. This is the accepted manuscript of the article published in Systematics and Biodiversity. The final version of the record is available at: https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1469-7998.2011.00813.x This research was supported by Provincia di Livorno and INTERREG III Toscana–Corsica–Sardegna.