Genetic variation in the little red flying-fox Pteropus scapulatus (Chiroptera: Pteropodidae): Implications for management Original Research Article

The little red flying-fox Pteropus scapulatus has a range exceeding 3·5 million km2 during its seasonal migration in Australia. Management of this species has been problematical because the range spans five States and Territories, each with its own system of managing wildlife. The results of an investigation of population structure by genetic analysis are presented. Allozyme electrophoresis and Random Amplified Polymorphic DNA (RAPD) analyses were used to determine genetic variation within and among six populations from widely separated locations on the continent. Both allozyme and DNA techniques demonstrated very little genetic structuring among the subpopulation samples. Analysis of molecular variance on the RAPD data showed only 5% of variance among populations, although this difference was shown to be significant. A value of 0·028 for Wrightʹs FST (a measure of the among-population component of variance in allele frequencies) suggested a similarly low degree of differentiation among subpopulations. The levels of gene flow detected by these genetic analyses indicate that P. scapulatus is effectively panmictic.