Conservation Genomics of the Southern River Terrapin

The southern river terrapin is one of the world’s 25 most endangered freshwater turtle species. The major portion of the global population is currently found in Peninsular Malaysia, with the only remnant Indochinese population in southern Cambodia. For more than a decade, wild nests in this remnant Cambodian population have been fenced and hatchlings reared in captivity. In this project, we obtained 2658 presumably unlinked and neutral SNPs from 72 captive individuals with ddRAD-seq for genetic management of an assurance colony of the species. Our results reveal that the last Indochinese population comprised only 4 kinship groups as of 2012, with all offspring sired from <10 individuals in the wild. We demonstrate an obvious decrease in genetic contributions of breeders in the wild from 2006-2012 and identify high-value breeders instrumental for ex-situ management of the contemporary genetic stock of the species.