NE tigers genetically different from rest of India

Genes of big cats in the Northeast match with counterparts in South East Asia

BY OUR STAFF REPORTER

GUWAHATI, Aug 22: Can big cats in the Northeast be different from their counterparts in the rest of the country? Sounds strange but true.

The latest detailed report of ‘Status of the Tigers, Co-predators and Prey in India’ brought out by Wildlife Institute of India and tiol Tiger Conservation Authority has found that the tiger population of NE region is genetically different from the rest of India. The prime objective of bringing out such detailed report is to deal with genetic structure of tigers in the country to ensure effective conservation efforts.

The report has revealed that there are mainly two large population clusters of tigers in India — the Northeastern population and population of the rest of the country. According to the report, big cats from the Northeast are distinctly different in their genetic composition and their population probably forms a zone where there has been historic gene flow from neighbouring Myanmar. Tigers took the Myanmar route to enter India and migration continued, resulting in mixing of genes of tigers from Southeast Asia and India. It has created a different and distinct composition of gene frequencies in the Northeast, the report said.

As per the report, quantifying gene flow in tiger populations is crucial to understand as how ancestry, dispersal and isolation operate in maintaining meta-populations. A meta-population consists of a group of separated populations of the same species which interact at some level. The tigers of NE region have more chances to share and match their genes with counterparts in Myanmar, Thailand and South Chi because of their habitat connectivity in the trans-boundary areas, the report added.

The findings on gene differences among tigers in NE and rest of India has evoked a great deal of curiosity and interest among wildlife activists and experts in the backdrop of significant upsurge in the population of big cats in four tiol parks in Assam— Kaziranga, Mas, Orang and meri. 

The Northeast region has two tiger conservation units (TCUs), one comprising Mas Tiger Reserve, stretching across Bhutan to Aruchal Pradesh, while the other includes Kaziranga in Assam and stretches upto Meghalaya.

Wildlife experts here said further genetic study may throw up even greater similarities between Indo-Chinese tiger sub-species and the tiger population of NE region.