Ocelots are a type of medium-sized spotted cat that mostly lives in South American rainforests. However, in recent years, rainforests have been cut down by humans, which is bringing damage to the ocelot population.
In the United States, ocelots currently exhibit low levels of genetic diversity. There were human-induced changes in the landscape of the ocelots’ habitats during the 20th century, which led to habitat fragmentation – which means that the habitats were destroyed, and left small, unconnected pieces – which created island populations with highly reduced gene flow, increased genetic drift, and inbreeding. This means that it was harder for different ocelots to breed with each other, and forced them to mate with ocelots that are more similar to them.
Moreover, during the 20th century, humans engaged in uncontrolled harvesting of ocelots and extensive thorn shrub habitat. Ocelots were highly valued for their fur, which made them very appealing to humans. Currently, only two small groups of ocelots remain in the United States today.
By comparing the genes of the ocelots in the United States with those found in Mexico, it was apparent how low the genetic diversity of ocelots in the US were.
If you compare the nucleotide diversity of the ocelots in Mexico with the ocelots in Texas, you can clearly see that the ocelots in Texas have a lower diversity.
Nowadays, scientists have been working on ways to increase the genetic diversity of ocelots in America. For the past 25 years, scientists have been working on studying technologies that can help loss of genetic diversity for these animals. They developed techniques for sperm collection, frozen storage and artificial insemination. These are technologies in collecting sperm of dead male ocelots, and storing them.
In 2021 July, in the Albuquerque Biopark Zoo, there was an experiment performed inseminating a zoo-born female ocelot with the sperm recovered from a deceased wildlife ocelot. It was a success, and the female ocelot became pregnant.
In addition, I wrote a song for ocelot awareness.
References:
https://tpwd.texas.gov/business/grants/wildlife/section-6/docs/mammals/e77_final_report.pdf
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/24586737/
