Influence of landscape features on spatial genetic structure of white‐tailed deer in human‐altered landscapes

Abstract

Predictive relationships between estimates of functional population connectivity and physical and biotic landscape features can provide important insights into present and future population responses to human-mediated landscape change. Quantification of associations between landscape features and dispersal or genetic surrogates such as gene flow among areas can be particularly challenging for continuously distributed and highly mobile wildlife species. We assessed the relative influence of natural and humanaltered landscape features on white-tailed deer (Odocoileus virginianus) spatial genetic structure (SGS) in southern Michigan (USA) using 7 microsatellite markers assayed for 326 adult individuals from 21 contiguous counties (33,284 km 2 ). We used previously collected telemetry data to quantify probabilities of habitat occupancy and seasonal movements that allowed selection and weighting of landscape features to create habitat suitability indices (HSI). We assigned individuals to groups (n ¼ 13) for statistical analyses quantifying relationships between measures of SGS (response variable) with Euclidean distance, least cost distances parameterized using HSI, and presence of natural (rivers) and man-made (roads) barriers to dispersal. Over the entire study area, genetic differentiation was significant (mean F st ¼ 0.019, P < 0.001) and increased with increasing inter-group geographic distance (r 2 ¼ 0.381; P < 0.05). We identified features in the landscape matrix between groups including rivers, high traffic roads, and habitats of intermediate HSI as inhibiting gene flow. Low HSI was associated with low between-group F st and appeared to facilitate gene flow. Quantification of the relative importance of man-made barriers (roads) and habitat suitability to SGS for white-tailed deer emphasizes the importance of joint use of ecological and genetic analyses in conservation and control efforts for abundant and mobile wildlife species. Ó 2014 The Wildlife Society.

Spatial heterogeneity of prion gene polymorphisms in an area recently infected by chronic wasting disease

“…Thus, they are predicted to have similar impacts on gene flow and Prnp frequencies as well. Additionally, previous studies suggest that whitetailed deer also conform to a clinal pattern of genetic structure, which may be consistent with the north-tosouth gradient of increasing genetic susceptibility observed in this study [40,41]. The magnitude of divergence in Prnp genotype frequencies was somewhat unexpected, especially given the widespread nature of white-tailed deer gene flow and relative permeability of previously reported dispersal barriers [38,42].…”

Assessment of spatial genetic structure to identify populations at risk for infection of an emerging epizootic disease

“…Landscape genetic analyses also indicated a possible underlying genetic cline, with the isolation‐by‐distance model explaining 47% of the variance in pairwise measures of genetic differentiation. This pattern of isolation‐by‐distance is a common characteristic of widespread species (Pelletier et al, 2012; Vergara et al, 2015) and has been documented in other white‐tailed deer populations (Kelly et al, 2014; Locher et al, 2015; Robinson et al, 2012). An isolation‐by‐distance pattern of population structure may also lead to over‐estimating the number of true genetic partitions when using Geneland and other clustering analyses (Frantz, Cellina, Krier, Schley, & Burke, 2009; Safner et al, 2011).…”

Landscape genetics in a changing world: disentangling historical and contemporary influences and inferring change

“…The majority of such studies still fail to consider whether time lags are likely (e.g. Locher et al 2015;Wilson et al 2015). We recommend that any landscape genetic study should at least discuss the potential for, and implications of, time lags in that system.…”