Authors
Byron V Weckworth, Marco Musiani, Nicholas J DeCesare, Allan D McDevitt, Mark Hebblewhite, Stefano Mariani
Publication date
2013/10/22
Journal
Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences
Volume
280
Issue
1769
Pages
20131756
Publisher
The Royal Society
Description
Landscape genetics provides a framework for pinpointing environmental features that determine the important exchange of migrants among populations. These studies usually test the significance of environmental variables on gene flow, yet ignore one fundamental driver of genetic variation in small populations, effective population size, Ne. We combined both approaches in evaluating genetic connectivity of a threatened ungulate, woodland caribou. We used least-cost paths to calculate matrices of resistance distance for landscape variables (preferred habitat, anthropogenic features and predation risk) and population-pairwise harmonic means of Ne, and correlated them with genetic distances, FST and Dc. Results showed that spatial configuration of preferred habitat and Ne were the two best predictors of genetic relationships. Additionally, controlling for the effect of Ne increased the strength of correlations of …
Total citations
201420152016201720182019202020212022202320244915124855452
Scholar articles
BV Weckworth, M Musiani, NJ DeCesare, AD McDevitt… - Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological …, 2013