Data from: Paternity assignment and demographic closure in the New Zealand southern right whale ...

• Main Authors: Carroll, Emma L., Childerhouse, Simon J., Christie, Mark, Lavery, Shane, Patenaude, Nathalie, Alexander, Alana, Constantine, Rochelle, Steel, Debbie, Boren, Laura, Baker, Charles Scott
• Format: Dataset
• Language: English
• Published: Dryad 2012
• Subjects: Eubalaena australis; Animal Mating/Breeding Systems; New Zealand; Southern Right Whale
• Online Access: https://dx.doi.org/10.5061/dryad.n630t; https://datadryad.org/stash/dataset/doi:10.5061/dryad.n630t

The identification and characterisation of reproductively isolated subpopulations or ‘stocks’ is essential for effective conservation and management decisions. This can be difficult in vagile marine species like marine mammals. We used paternity assignment and ‘gametic recapture’ to examine the reproductive autonomy of southern right whales (Eubalaena australis) on their New Zealand (NZ) calving grounds. We derived DNA profiles for 34 mother-calf pairs from skin biopsy samples, using sex-specific markers, 13 microsatellite loci and mtDNA haplotypes. We constructed DNA profiles for 314 adult males, representing 30% of the census male abundance of the NZ stock, previously estimated from genotypic mark-recapture modelling to be 1085 (95% CL 855, 1416). Under the hypothesis of demographic closure and the assumption of equal reproductive success among males, we predict: (1) the proportion of paternities assigned will reflect the proportion of the male population sampled and (2) the gametic mark-recapture (GMR) ... : Simulation_scriptR code used in paper to test the power of our analyses to reject the null hypothesis of panmictic mating between New Zealand and southwest Australia right whale subpopulations.All_NZSA_ALFAUSTRALIA_ALLELEFREQCowCalfDad_genotypesJan2012_Dryadoffspring_CowCalf_dataset_Jan12CERVUS input file for paternity assignment analysis. Lists cow-calf pairs and candidate males. ...