Figure 1
From: Genomic evaluation of hybridization in historic and modern North American Bison (Bison bison)
This graph represents the survival and repopulation of bison by tracking the major founding lineages from wild captured bison to modern populations.The wild herds depicted represent the only populations of bison that survived the population bottleneck in the wild. The founder herds were privately owned bison that were established with bison captured from the wild. The wild and founder herds, seven in total, are the only herds that were in existence during the nadir of the population crash and represent the seven lineages of bison. The derived herds are those that were established with bison from one or more of the seven lineages. The solid arrow (direct transfer) represents direct movement of bison from one population to another, while the dashed line (indirect transfer) represents movement of bison with one or more intermediate populations between the populations depicted. This graph does not include all bison movement but is instead meant to show the contribution and influence that the founding herds have on modern populations based on documented evidence of transferring bison. This figure also identifies populations that are known to have domestic cattle introgression whether through historical documentation or modern genetic testing and the years when each population was established. The Banff National Park population is not the same as the reintroduced animals that currently reside in the park16,17,18,19.
