A SNP resource for studying North American moose

Area of Science:

• Genomics
• Wildlife Conservation
• Population Genetics

Background:

• North American moose (Alces alces) populations exhibit low genetic diversity due to historical founder effects and population bottlenecks.
• Development of genetic tests for moose has been hindered by the absence of a reference genome assembly and whole genome sequence (WGS) data.
• Single nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) markers are vital for wildlife forensics and conservation.

Purpose of the Study:

• To develop a set of informative single nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) markers for North American moose (Alces alces).
• To overcome the challenge of limited genomic resources for moose conservation and research.
• To enable SNP-based assays for animal identification, parentage determination, and relatedness estimation in moose.

Main Methods:

• Generated whole genome sequence (WGS) data for four individual moose from different US states.
• Utilized cattle and sheep reference genomes for aligning moose WGS reads and identifying potential single nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) markers.
• Selected a core set of 317 informative SNPs conserved across the studied moose individuals.

Main Results:

• Identified tens of thousands of high-confidence SNPs by comparing moose WGS data to cattle and sheep genomes.
• Observed decreasing genetic diversity from west to east among the four sampled moose populations.
• A minimum set of 317 SNPs was identified as a valuable resource for future SNP assay development in moose.

Conclusions:

• Successfully developed a set of informative SNPs for North American moose despite the lack of a reference genome.
• The identified SNPs are publicly available to facilitate the development of genetic tools for moose management and conservation.
• These genetic resources will support applications such as animal identification, parentage analysis, and population structure studies in moose.