Characterizing North Carolina black bear (Ursus americanus) populations using UrsaPlex v2.0

Abstract

American black bears (Ursus americanus) have been successfully restored in North Carolina (NC) due to management and research efforts by the North Carolina Wildlife Resources Commission and various partners. Investigations by law enforcement in NC involving black bears typically center on a) illegal take, b) purchase, possession, and sale of bear parts, or c) human-bear interactions. Effective prosecution of illegal parties requires methods that permit individual identification of black bears. Typically, individualization is achieved using robust DNA profiling and comparison to accepted genetic databases. Currently, a genetic database of highly variable loci genotyped from black bears across their range in NC does not exist. To address this, we focused on genotyping NC black bears using an updated version of UrsaPlex (UrsaPlex v2.0), a short tandem repeat (STR) panel of 11 loci and three sex-linked markers, previously developed to permit individualization for California black bears. Biological samples were obtained from NC black bears following IACUC approved protocols. Total genomic DNA was isolated from each sample and genotyped using UrsaPlex v2.0. The number of alleles in the final genotyped population (n = 173) ranged from five (UamD118 and UamB8) to 33 (UamA9). The observed heterozygosity (H_o) ranged from 0.471 (UamB1) to 0.872 (UamA9), while the expected heterozygosity (H_e) ranged from 0.469 (UamB1) to 0.919 (UamA9). The probability of identity (PID) was calculated as 6.9 × 10^-13. These results demonstrate the potential utility of UrsaPlex v2.0 for permitting individual identification of NC black bears for use in forensic casework and for population management.