Do relatives like to stay closer? Spatial organization and genetic relatedness in a mountain roe deer population

Abstract

The fine-scale genetic structure of mammal populations arises from the social and spatial behaviour of individuals. In wild ungulates gene flow is usually mediated by males, being the dispersing sex. The roe deer Capreolus capreolus represents an exception: males and females disperse in similar proportions as juveniles, but are subsequently mostly sedentary as adults, while mechanisms for inbreeding avoidance are more complex and not fully known. We investigated the seasonal variation in the relationship between genetic relatedness and spatial behaviour in a sample of 69 roe deer, monitored from 2002 to 2010 in a high-density population in Italy. Genetic and spatial analyses, based on individual positions, did not reveal any population structure, neither in the whole sample, nor in the two sexes separately. Our results are coherent with the absence of a sex bias in roe deer dispersal and suggest the existence of a high gene flow across a continuous forest habitat, thus preventing the onset of population structuring at a local scale. We found that genetic relatedness tended to increase with home range proximity, but mostly in winter. Nevertheless, when the extent of overlap between seasonal home ranges with respect to genetic relatedness was considered, males and females seemed to preferably share their home range with relatives of the same sex, reducing the overlap with relatives of the opposite sex during the rutting period. We conclude that home range rearrangements during the breeding season may afford a certain level of spatial segregation between closely related potential mates, thus reducing inbreeding risk.

Role of habitat heterogeneity and landscape connectivity in shaping gene flow and spatial population structure of a dominant rodent species in a tropical dry forest

“…The fine‐scale genetic structure of mammal populations arises also from social and spatial behavior of individuals (Biosa et al ., ). Indeed, L. pictus social organization must also play a role in the functional connectivity we appreciate in our results: adult males disperse more readily and longer distances than females, whereas females show strong site fidelity (philopatry) and have on average a smaller home range than males (Ceballos, ).…”

Mule deer spatial association patterns and potential implications for transmission of an epizootic disease

“…In contrast, spatially proximate individuals were more genetically related in studies of mule deer [47], white-tailed deer [80–83], Sitka black-tailed deer ( O . hemionus sitkensis ) [84], and non- Odocoileus cervid species [85–87]. However, the strength of the correlation between kinship and spatial separation or home range overlap varies depending on the set of deer considered in the analysis, and the scale used for measuring spatial distance [88].…”

Hybridisation rates, population structure, and dispersal of sambar deer (Cervus unicolor) and rusa deer (Cervus timorensis) in south-eastern Australia

“…Dispersal can also be observed through attempts to avoid inbreeding with relatives during breeding seasons (Long et al . 2008; Biosa et al . 2015), and environmental factors such as habitat cover, landscape features, and bushfires may also be important to understand natural deer movement (Long et al .…”