41. RACHEL FREER ♀
Information acquired: 2025
RACHEL FREER is an academic who published a paper in 2020 entitled Data from: Phylogeography and population history of Leopardus guigna, the smallest American felid. RACHEL FREER published this work as part of a team: Napolitano, Constanza. Here is a description of this work: <b>Abstract</b><br/>The guigna (Leopardus guigna) is the smallest and most-restricted New World cat species, inhabiting only around 160,000 km2 of temperate rain forests in southern South America and is currently threatened by habitat loss, fragmentation and human persecution. We investigated phylogeographic patterns of genetic diversity, demographic history and barriers to gene flow with 116 individuals sampled across the species geographic range by analyzing 1,798 base pairs of the mtDNA (496 bp HVSI region, 720 bp NADH-5 gene, 364 bp from 16S gene and 218 bp from ATP-8 gene) and 15 microsatellite loci. Mitochondrial DNA data revealed a clear phylogeographic pattern with moderate separation between northern and southern Chilean populations supporting recognized subspecific partitions based on morphol.