1 The impact of past introductions on an iconic and economically important 2 species, the red deer of Scotland 3 Sílvia Pérez-Espona1,2*, Richard J. Hall3, F. Javier Pérez-Barbería2, Belinda C. Glass3, Jamie 4 F. Ward3, Josephine M. Pemberton1 5 1Institute of Evolutionary Biology, The University of Edinburgh, West Mains Road, 6 Edinburgh EH9 3JT, UK 7 2The James Hutton Institute, Craigiebuckler, Aberdeen AB15 8QH, UK 8 3AgResearch, Invermay Agricultural Centre, Puddle Alley, Private Bag 50034, Mosgiel 9053, 9 New Zealand 10 11 *Corresponding author: Sílvia Pérez-Espona 12 E-mail:
[email protected];
[email protected] 13 Running title: Effect of past introductions in Scottish red deer 14 15 Summary 16 The red deer (Cervus elaphus) is an iconic species in Scotland and, due to its value as a game 17 species, an important element of the Scottish rural economy. The native status of this species 18 is sometimes questioned because of many, recorded, introductions of non-native deer in the 19 past in an attempt to improve trophy size. In this study, we assessed the impact of past 20 introductions on the genetic make-up of Scottish red deer by genotyping at 15 microsatellite 21 loci a large number of samples (n = 1,152), including mainland and island Scottish red deer 22 and individuals from several putative external source populations used in introductions to 23 improve trophy. Population structure and introgression assessment analyses revealed that the 24 impact of introductions was weak in Highland red deer populations but more prominent on 25 the islands, especially on those where current red deer populations are mostly or entirely 1 26 derived from introductions (Harris & Lewis, Arran and Rum).