The effects of introductions on genetic diversity, the detection of bottlenecks and population structure are likely to be greater, as these factors are affected by demography over many generations.
The results were qualitatively the same when locus Allo 17 was excluded (VRLP 2003 P = 0.023; all other populations P > 0.281), providing support for the tenet that null alleles are a minor source of error in estimating heterozygosity excess for the detection of bottlenecks [ 13].
BOTTLENECK and M-ratio tests are useful for detection of recent bottlenecks but fail to detect earlier bottleneck events [33], [59].
The first application shows how the procedure can be applied in case of availability of fine-grained data and for metropolitan/regional analysis, allowing a precise detection of possible bottlenecks in the system and the individuation of possible interventions to relieve the high usage rate of these elements.
Population structure, if not properly accounted for, can, for example, lead to the detection of spurious bottlenecks (Chikhi et al. 2010).
Our data showed that the younger populations of L. neglectus are characterised by the lowest chemical variation and genetic diversity in terms of allelic richness (strongest evidence), the number of polymorphic loci and also the detection of genetic bottlenecks.
Moreover, all the tests applied have been shown to have similar power in the detection of recent bottlenecks [ 29], so that they are expected to give similar results under a purely demographic scenario.
In the current study, we developed additional SSRs useful for population genetic analysis including effects of fragmentation on loss of diversity, fine-scale population structure, breeding system and pollen dispersal, and detection of recent bottlenecks in P. alba and P. chilensis, the most important native forest resources among Argentinean "algarrobos".
Fortunately, because the LD signals for large and small populations are quite different (Fig. 3), estimates based on even moderate amounts of data should be able to provide a useful lower bound for Ne, and this can be important, particularly in conservation applications where a major concern is avoidance and/or early detection of population bottlenecks.
Therefore, the early detection of a bottleneck event is of central interest to conservation biologists.
This may be understood since detection of current bottleneck relies mostly on the variation of allele frequencies in the last generations.
