Data from: Koalas (Phascolarctos cinereus) from Queensland are genetically distinct from 2 populations in Victoria

The koala (Phascolarctos cinereus) suffered population declines and local
extirpation due to hunting in the early 20th century, especially in
southern Australia. Koalas were subsequently reintroduced to the Brisbane
Ranges (BR) and Stony Rises (SR) by translocating individuals from a
population on French Island descended from a small number of founders. To
examine genetic diversity and north–south differentiation, we genotyped 13
microsatellite markers in 46 wild koalas from the BR and SR, and 27
Queensland koalas kept at the US zoos. The Queensland koalas displayed
much higher heterozygosity (H O = 0.73) than the 2 southern Australian
koala populations examined: H O = 0.49 in the BR, whereas H O = 0.41 in
the SR. This is consistent with the historical accounts of bottlenecks and
founder events affecting the southern populations and contrasts with
reports of high genetic diversity in some southern populations. The 2
southern Australian koala populations were genetically similar (F ST =
0.018, P = 0.052). By contrast, northern and southern Australian koalas
were highly differentiated (F ST = 0.27, P < 0.001), thereby
suggesting that geographic structuring should be considered in the
conservation management of koalas. Sequencing of 648bp of the mtDNA
control region in Queensland koalas found 8 distinct haplotypes, one of
which had not been previously detected among koalas. Queensland koalas
displayed high mitochondrial haplotype diversity (H = 0.753) and
nucleotide diversity (π = 0.0072), indicating along with the
microsatellite data that North American zoos have maintained high levels
of genetic diversity among their Queensland koalas.