Genetic research confirms six subspecies of tigers

While there have been conservation efforts for many years, it is a never-ending struggle. Some estimates say that just a century ago there were more than 100,000 cats in approximately 13 countries. Fast-forward to 2018 and not only has the number of tigers plummeted, wild tigers no longer exist in Cambodia and Vietnam and for all intents and purposes are extinct in China, Laos and much of Myanmar.

Debate has also raged about how many subspecies of tigers there were -- and now a research project confirms that tigers do, in fact, fall into six distinct groups. The study has been published in Current Biology (October 25, 2018.)

These six subspecies include: the Bengal tiger,, Amur tiger, South China tiger, Sumatran tiger, Indochinese tiger and the Malayan tiger, first proposed in 2004. Three other tiger subspecies have already been lost to extinction.

"Tigers are rapidly headed for extinction in the wild, and the loss seen over the past few decades is increasing and is happening in spite of intense conservation interest, surveillance, legal protection, and expenditure," said Stephen O'Brien, a research scientist at Nova Southeastern University's (NSU) Halmos College of Natural Sciences and Oceanography. "The tiger depletion stands as one of conservation's most poignant morality tales of loss."

O'Brien, who is also the Chief Scientific Officer at the Theodosius Dobzhansky Center for Genome Bioinformatics, St. Petersburg State University, Russia, was part of the team responsible for this latest study. He was recently elected to the National Academy of Sciences (NAS.)

O'Brien said that the study brings important context and conclusions to recovery and management strategies for a treasured endangered species, and included subspecies, at high extinction risk. This new report represents a genome-wide sequence analyses that has direct bearing on recovery and management strategies for a treasured endangered species and subspecies at high extinction risk. The authors recommend the recognition, classification and management of the six living tiger subspecies as separate conservation units deserving individual protection planning.