Harvest can affect vital rates such as reproduction and survival, but also genetic measures of individual and population health. Grey wolves (Canis lupus) live and breed in groups, and effective population size is a small fraction of total abundance. As a result, genetic diversity of wolves may be particularly sensitive to harvest. We evaluated how harvest affected genetic diversity and relatedness in wolves. We hypothesized that harvest would (a) reduce relatedness of individuals within groups in a subpopulation but increase relatedness of individuals between groups due to increased local immigration, (b) increase individual heterozygosity and average allelic richness across groups in subpopulations and (c) add new alleles to a subpopulation and decrease the number of private alleles in subpopulations due to an increase in breeding opportunities for unrelated individuals. We found harvest had no effect on observed heterozygosity of individuals or allelic richness at loci within subpopulations but was associated with a small, biologically insignificant effect on within‐group relatedness values in grey wolves. Harvest was, however, positively associated with increased relatedness of individuals between groups and a net gain (+16) of alleles into groups in subpopulations monitored since harvest began, although the number of private alleles in subpopulations overall declined. Harvest likely created opportunities for wolves to immigrate into nearby groups and breed, thereby making groups in subpopulations more related over time. Harvest appears to affect genetic diversity in wolves at the group and population levels, but its effects are less apparent at the individual level given the population sizes we studied.

中文翻译：

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收获会影响灰狼的遗传多样性吗？

收获会影响生命率，例如繁殖和生存，但也会影响个体和人群健康的遗传指标。灰狼（犬狼疮）成群生活和繁殖，有效种群数量仅占总种群数量的一小部分。结果，狼的遗传多样性可能对收获特别敏感。我们评估了收获如何影响狼的遗传多样性和相关性。我们假设收获将（a）减少亚人群中个体之间的亲缘关系，但由于局部移民增加而增加群体之间个体之间的亲缘关系；（b）增加个体杂合度和亚人群中各群体之间的平均等位基因丰富度，并且（c）添加新的等位基因到一个亚群中，并减少了这些亚群中私人等位基因的数目，这是由于不相关个体的繁殖机会增加了。我们发现收获对亚群内个体观察到的杂合度或等位基因丰富度没有影响，但与灰狼对组内相关性值的生物学影响不大，但影响很小。自收获开始以来，尽管与亚群中的私人等位基因数量总体上有所下降，但收获与个体之间相关性的增强和亚群中监测到的亚群中等位基因的净增加（+16）呈正相关，尽管亚群中私人等位基因的数量总体上有所下降。收获很可能为狼迁徙到附近的群体并繁殖创造了机会，从而使亚种群的群体随着时间的流逝更加相关。收获似乎在群体和种群水平上影响狼的遗传多样性，但鉴于我们研究的种群数量，收获的影响在个体水平上不太明显。