9321604 Stephan/Glenn The whooping crane is a well known endangered species that is successfully recovering from a severe reduction in population size (a population size bottleneck). Whooping cranes were reduced to one wild population with 14 adults in 1941, but now number more than 300 individuals. Additionally there are large numbers of whooping cranes in museum collections from previous historical populations. Because it is now possible to obtain genetic information from museum specimens, whooping cranes represent an opportunity to measure directly the loss of genetic variation in an uniquely well studied species that has experienced a population bottleneck. Stephan and Glenn propose to sequence and analyze mitochondrial and nuclear DNA loci of the whooping cranes. By obtaining genetic information from individuals that lived prior to, during, and following the most severe portion of the bottleneck, they will be able to compare the level of the genetic variation in whooping cranes with that predicted by population genetic models. Based on these comparisons, they will have the opportunity to assess the accuracy of theoretical models and to suggest the reintroduction strategy that most closely mimics the historical pattern of genetic variation among the populations of whooping cranes.
