Pygmy Elephants Get Protection Boost from Genetics

To help protect a diminutive elephant researchers are taking an innovative look at the pachyderm's genome.

The goal is to understand the genetic diversity of pygmy elephants on the island of Borneo. Numbering about 2,000, these babyish-looking elephants are the most endangered subspecies of Asian elephant. They live primarily in the Malaysian state of Sabah on Borneo, where they are threatened by the loss and fragmentation of their forest, often by development associated with palm oil, widely used, edible plant oil.

"We are interested in looking at the diversity of elephants around the whole distribution range in Sabah," said study researcher Reeta Sharma, a postdoctoral fellow at the Instituto Gulbenkian de Cincia (IGC) in Portugal.

Sharma and colleagues want to see how genetic diversity is distributed within the Borneo elephant population and how the fragmentation or breaking up of their forest habitat is affecting it by, for example, isolating groups of elephants. Increased isolation can be problematic because it means inbreeding, which can lead to more sickly and vulnerable animals. Their results suggest low genetic diversity in the pygmy elephants. [Amazing Photos of Pygmy Elephants]

Not easy to find

From the outset, the researchers knew they would need a close look to find markers within the elephant's genetic code that they could use to assess diversity. Markers are spots in the sequence that should vary between individual animals.

Only one previous study, published in 2003, conducted a genetic analysis of Borneo elephants. Using information developed from other Asian elephants, this study found low levels of diversity among Borneo elephants, meaning researchers were on the hunt for needles in a haystack.

"There is diversity there but you need genomes to look at it," said study researcher Louns Chikhi, a researcher at the Centre National de la Recherche Scientifiquein France and a principal investigator at the IGC.

A genome is an organism's DNA (deoxyribonucleic acid) sequence. Sharma and Chikhi hoped to harness rapidly evolving technology for reading large amounts of this sequence to identify markers they could use to assess diversity.

Before the arrival of genome-sequencing technology, identifying markers was a cumbersome and tedious process. Often, researchers had to rely on markers developed for relatives of the animal in question, the researchers said.

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Pygmy Elephants Get Protection Boost from Genetics