Identifying population structure and boundaries among communities of wildlife exposed to anthropogenic threats is key to successful conservation management. Previous studies on the demography, social and spatial structure of Indo-Pacific bottlenose dolphins (Tursiops aduncus) suggested four nearly discrete behavioral communities in Perth metropolitan waters, Western Australia. We investigated the genetic structure of these four communities using highly polymorphic microsatellite markers and part of the hypervariable segment of the mitochondrial control region. Overall, there was no evidence of spatial genetic structure. We found significant, yet very small genetic differentiation between some communities, most likely due to the presence of highly related individuals within these communities. Our findings of high levels of contemporary migration and highly related individuals among communities point toward a panmictic genetic population with continuous gene flow among each of the communities. In species with slow life histories and fission-fusion dynamics, such as Tursiops spp., genetic and socio-spatial structures may reflect different timescales. Thus, despite genetic similarity, each social community should be considered as a distinct ecological unit to be conserved because they are exposed to different anthropogenic threats and occur in different ecological habitats, social structure being as important as genetic information for immediate conservation management. The estuarine community, in particular, is highly vulnerable and appropriate conservation measures are needed in order to maintain its connectivity with the adjacent, semi-enclosed coastal communities.

中文翻译：

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沿海海豚种群的社会空间和遗传结构之间的不一致

确定暴露于人为威胁的野生动物社区之间的种群结构和边界是成功保护管理的关键。之前对印度洋-太平洋宽吻海豚 (Tursiops aduncus) 的人口统计学、社会和空间结构的研究表明，西澳大利亚珀斯大都会水域有四个几乎离散的行为社区。我们使用高度多态性的微卫星标记和线粒体控制区的部分高变段研究了这四个群落的遗传结构。总体而言，没有空间遗传结构的证据。我们发现一些社区之间存在显着但非常小的遗传差异，很可能是由于这些社区中存在高度相关的个体。我们对当代高水平迁徙和社区间高度相关个体的发现表明，每个社区之间存在持续基因流动的混乱遗传群体。在生命史和裂变融合动力学缓慢的物种中，例如 Tursiops spp.，遗传和社会空间结构可能反映不同的时间尺度。因此，尽管遗传相似，每个社会群落都应被视为一个独特的生态单元来保护，因为它们暴露于不同的人为威胁并发生在不同的生态栖息地，社会结构与遗传信息对于即时保护管理一样重要。特别是河口社区非常脆弱，需要采取适当的保护措施以保持其与邻近地区的连通性，