225 Conservation Biology, Pages 225–227 Volume 12, No. 1, February 1998 DNA Fingerprint Variation and Reproductive Fitness in the Plain Pigeon DESHEA L. YOUNG,* MARC W. ALLARD,† JORGE A. MORENO,‡ MICHAEL M. MIYAMOTO,§ CARLOS R. RUIZ,** AND RAUL A. PÉREZ-RIVERA†† *The Schepens Eye Research Institute, 20 Staniford Street, Boston, MA 02114, U.S.A. †Department of Biological Sciences, George Washington University, Washington, DC 20052, U.S.A. ‡Department of Environmental, Population, and Organismic Biology, University of Colorado, Boulder, CO 80309, U.S.A. §Department of Zoology, University of Florida, Gainesville, FL 32611-2009, U.S.A. ** Department of Natural and Environmental Resources, P.O. Box 887, San Juan, Puerto Rico 00906 ††Puerto Rico Plain Pigeon Captive Breeding Program, Department of Biology, University of Puerto Rico, Humacao, Puerto Rico 00791 Introduction The Plain Pigeon (Columba inornata wetmorei ) is an endemic subspecies of Puerto Rico. This once common bird has declined markedly due to habitat destruction, clandestine hunting, nesting failures due to human dis- turbance, and predation (Pérez-Rivera & Collazu 1976; Pérez-Rivera 1978; King 1981; Lowe et al. 1990). Its en- dangered status has resulted in a high-priority effort, and a captive breeding program was begun for it in 1983 at the Humacao Campus of the University of Puerto Rico in cooperation with the Puerto Rico Department of Natural Resources and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (Pérez- Rivera et al. 1988). The founder population included 8 adults and 1 juvenile from Cidra in eastern Puerto Rico, and 13 more individuals were added over the next 4 years. The program has produced 126 young, and the captive population now numbers 103 birds (20 living founders and 83 surviving descendants). Miyamoto et al. (1994) used DNA fingerprinting of nu- clear DNA ( Jeffreys & Morton 1987; Geyer et al. 1993) and direct sequencing of the control region for mtDNA to estimate genetic variation among the 20 surviving founders of the breeding program (9 males and 11 fe- males). The DNA fingerprint comparisons showed esti- mates of 41.3% and 36.3% for the average proportion of band differences (APD) among pairs of individuals for two restriction enzymes. The APDs are usually more than 70% for unrelated individuals and less than 50% for first-order relatives in other species of birds (Brock & White 1992; Oring et al., 1992; Piper & Rabenold 1992; Haig & Ballou 1995). In the Plain Pigeon only two and five pairs of individuals were characterized by pairwise fingerprint differences (D) of more than 70% for the Hae III and HinfI digestions, respectively. Fingerprint scores for the 20 founders of the Plain Pigeon in the breeding program resembled those for first-order relatives of other birds. Brock and White (1992) showed a significant negative relationship between the band-sharing counts (BSC) of the DNA fingerprints for individual breeding pairs and their success in fledging young in the endangered Puerto Rican Parrot (Amazona vittata). This significant association between D (where D = 1 - BSC) and suc- cessful fledging of young (their Table 3) was attributed to inbreeding depression. They proposed that DNA fin- gerprint differences can be used to guide the choice of individual Puerto Rican Parrots and other endangered birds selected as breeders in captive flocks. The avail- ability of reproductive information for pairs of captive Puerto Rican Pigeons and the D estimates from Miya- moto et al. (1994) provide us an opportunity to evaluate the association between fingerprint differences and re- productive fitness (Brock & White 1992). Such an evalu- ation complements studies showing a relationship be- tween relatedness and fitness or genetic variation (Templeton & Read 1984; Haig et al. 1989; Lacy 1989). Methods Reproductive measures of fitness were available for six pairs of Puerto Rican Pigeons in the captive-breeding † Address correspondence to M. W. Allard, email mwallard@gwis2. circ.gwu.edu Paper submitted October 25, 1996; revised manuscript accepted Feb- ruary 4, 1997.