003; Table 2). However, the only Hector’s dolphin population that could be excluded as a source was the

South Coast for one of the dolphins, check details Che12NZ02 (P = 0.002). As in the Structure results, GeneClass2 assigned CheNI10-03 and CheNI10-24 to the West Coast South Island with high likelihoods (Table 2). GeneClass2 also provided high assignment likelihoods for Che12NZ02 to the West Coast South Island, and for Che09WH01 and Che11NZ06 to the East Coast South Island population, although they did not exceed the high confidence threshold of 0.01 (Table 2). Again similar to the Structure results, Che05NZ20 showed a more ambiguous assignment among the Hector’s dolphin populations with a moderate likelihood of 0.6189 to the West Coast, followed by 0.2353 to the East Coast. Our findings demonstrate the fundamental concept of genetic monitoring—observing changes in demographic and genetic parameters over time. The genetic monitoring of the Maui’s ICG-001 nmr dolphin resulted in the unexpected discovery of four Hector’s dolphins within the Maui’s dolphin distribution on the northwest coast of the North Island between 2010 and 2012. The presence of these Hector’s dolphins would not have been evident without the extensive baseline of genetic diversity initiated by Pichler (2002) and updated by Hamner et al. (2012) to include individuals sampled between 1988 and 2007. This

reference sample set was intentionally time-limited so as to minimize the potential for generational changeover, assuming an estimated 20 yr maximum lifespan of Hector’s and Maui’s dolphins (Slooten and Lad 1991), while maximizing the number of contemporary samples across the distribution of the species. In light of the unexpected discovery of the Hector’s dolphins among Maui’s medchemexpress dolphins,

we reexamined genotypes of two Hector’s dolphins sampled on the southwest coast of the North Island in 2005 and 2009. These dolphins sampled at Peka Peka Beach (Che05NZ20) and Wellington Harbour (Che09WH01), were found between the distributions of the two subspecies. Although the sample from Peka Peka Beach (Che05NZ20) was collected in 2005, within the 1988–2007 time period used for the baseline, it was excluded from the genetic baseline as an outlier, given that it was a neonate found beachcast in an area extralimital to the known distribution of either subspecies. However when considered together, the six Hector’s dolphins sampled on the North Island pose several nonexclusive scenarios: (A) several independent events occurred where one or more dolphins dispersed from known population(s) on the South Island to the North Island; (B) a single stochastic event occurred, where several Hector’s dolphins dispersed together as a group from a known population on the South Island to the North Island; or (C) a small population of previously unsampled Hector’s dolphins exists along the southern North Island or northern South Island, several of which dispersed into the Maui’s dolphin distribution.