We will characterize genetic diversity and genetic structure of mountain goats from reintroduced populations in Nevada and Utah, with the goal of informing management of those translocated herds. Genetic diversity of translocated herds can be very low, leading to potential management problems related to inbreeding or low diversity leading to poor herd performance, as has been well demonstrated in similar situations with bighorn sheep (Whittaker et al., 2004; Hogg et al., 2006; Spaan et al., 2021a) .

Goal 1: Describe genetic diversity using microsatellite markers, which will allow use of both invasive (blood, tissue) and non-invasive (fecal samples, hair) samples, as well as comparison to other published studies e.g., (Poissant et al., 2009; Ortego et al., 2011; Shafer et al., 2012; Parks et al., 2015) or ongoing studies (e.g., the Epps lab is genotyping mountain goat samples from Glacier National Park at 19 microsatellite loci). Although no standard set of loci has been employed across previous mountain goat genetic studies, our current set of up to 19 microsatellite loci overlap with many loci used in other published studies (Mainguy et al., 2007; Ortego et al., 2011; Poole et al., 2011; Paetkau, 2018; Oscarson et al., 2024; Young et al., 2024) ; those studies report locus-specific heterozygosity estimates that can be used for locus-by-locus comparison with the populations in our proposed study. Goal 2: Describe genetic diversity using RADSeq or similar techniques to identify single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) across the sampled populations and genotype all appropriate samples. This analysis will be limited to high-quality sources of DNA such as blood and tissue. While comparable data from other populations not directly included in this study do not yet exist, this will serve as a baseline for future efforts if comparable data is desired by other jurisdictions. Moreover, these data will provide the potential for more detailed analyses of inbreeding, for example through estimation of long runs of heterozygosity (Curik et al., 2014) , and genetic assignment for future analysis of the success of the augmentation. Goal 3: Determine the ability to differentiate mountain goats from different populations by genetic assignment, using Program STRUCTURE (microsatellites) (Pritchard et al., 2000) , DAPC (microsatellites or SNPs) (Jombart et al., 2010) , or Entropy (Shastry et al., 2021) , and estimate genetic differentiation among populations. This will provide insights about the degree to which Nevada and Utah's existing herds have diverged genetically, as well as potentially helping to review potential source populations for future augmentations. Most critically, this will determine whether we can clearly differentiate existing EH mountain goats from those released in the November 2024 augmentation, to allow future determination of the relative success of existing and new lineages (and thus the value or success of the augmentation effort). Because the EH and RM populations as well as the goats sourced from the Tushar Mountains in Utah for the augmentation all have some ancestry from mountain goats from Olympic National Park, it is unclear whether we will have the ability to easily discriminate individuals by herd or source through genetic assignment. However, generating both microsatellite and SNP data should maximize our ability to do so.

Focal populations in Nevada and Utah for this project include: the East Humboldt Range (EH), including samples collected before a planned herd augmentation using mountain goats from Utah in November 2024, the Ruby Mountains (RM), the mountain goats used to augment the EH population, the Pearl Peak (PP) population (pioneered from the RM herd), and the source population for the augmentation (Tushar Mountains; using samples provided by Utah Division of Wildlife Resources). The funding for this proposal will support a first phase of the research, but additional funding will be needed for a second phase to bring sample numbers up to desired levels for stronger inference and full analysis. Through June 2026.

Strategy under population management objective #1 Objective 1: Increase mountain goat populations within the state as conditions allow Strategies: Augment existing populations where needed to improve herd distribution, link small populations, and improve genetic diversity.

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Microsatellite analysis will be conducted as described by (Epps et al., 2024) using 2-3 or more independent multiplexed PCR reactions per sample and per panel of markers, with fragment sizes visualized on an ABI 3730 at the Center for Quantitative Life Sciences (CQLS) at Oregon State University. Initial panels of 6-9 microsatellite loci will be used to determine which samples come from independent individuals, as duplicates are common when non-invasive samples are used, and individuals identified will subsequently be genotyped at up to 10 additional loci to create higher-resolution genotypes for analysis.

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NDOW, Oregon State University, UDWR, Utah Chapter WSF

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