Using genetic tools to estimate the prevalence of non-native red deer (Cervus elaphus) in a Western European population

Game species like the red deer have been subjected to anthropogenic impacts for centuries. Translocations are often carried out—sometimes illegally—not only for sporting purposes, but also to increase trophy quality, reduce inbreeding, or mitigate bottlenecks after excessive persecution. Apart from the blurring of large-scale genetic structure, translocations without adequate quarantine measure risk introducing pathogens into potentially immunologically naïve populations. It is therefore important to understand the frequency of clandestine translocations. Identification of non-autochthonous animals and their potential origin is often difficult and, in red deer, has been hampered by the lack of large-scale genotypic datasets for comparison. In the present study, we make use of a recently published European-wide microsatellite dataset to detect and quantify the presence of non-autochthonous red deer in a large population sample (n = 1,780) from Central Europe (Belgium). Using factorial co...