title: Assessing the permeability of landscape features to animal movement: using genetic structure to infer functional connectivity.
abstract: Human-altered environments often challenge native species with a complex spatial distribution of resources. Hostile landscape features can inhibit animal movement (i.e., genetic exchange), while other landscape attributes facilitate gene flow. The genetic attributes of organisms inhabiting such complex environments can reveal the legacy of their movements through the landscape. Thus, by evaluating landscape attributes within the context of genetic connectivity of organisms within the landscape, we can elucidate how a species has coped with the enhanced complexity of human altered environments. In this research, we utilized genetic data from eastern chipmunks (Tamias striatus) in conjunction with spatially explicit habitat attribute data to evaluate the realized permeability of various landscape elements in a fragmented agricultural ecosystem. To accomplish this we 1) used logistic regression to evaluate whether land cover attributes were most often associated with the matrix between or habitat within genetically identified populations across the landscape, and 2) utilized spatially explicit habitat attribute data to predict genetically-derived Bayesian probabilities of population membership of individual chipmunks in an agricultural ecosystem. Consistency between the results of the two approaches with regard to facilitators and inhibitors of gene flow in the landscape indicate that this is a promising new way to utilize both landscape and genetic data to gain a deeper understanding of human-altered ecosystems.
authors.affiliation: Biosciences Department, Minnesota State University Moorhead, 1104 7th Ave, Moorhead, MN, 56563, United States of America; Department of Forestry and Natural Resources, 715 W. State Street, Purdue University, West Lafayette, IN, 47907, United States of America.
authors.forename: Sara J
authors.initials: SJ
authors.lastname: Anderson
authors.affiliation: Behavioral and Molecular Ecology Group, Department of Biological Sciences, University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, 3209 N. Maryland Ave., Milwaukee, WI, 53024, United States of America.
authors.forename: Elizabeth M
authors.initials: EM
authors.lastname: Kierepka
authors.affiliation: Department of Forestry and Natural Resources, 715 W. State Street, Purdue University, West Lafayette, IN, 47907, United States of America.
authors.forename: Robert K
authors.initials: RK
authors.lastname: Swihart
authors.affiliation: Behavioral and Molecular Ecology Group, Department of Biological Sciences, University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, 3209 N. Maryland Ave., Milwaukee, WI, 53024, United States of America.
authors.forename: Emily K
authors.initials: EK
authors.lastname: Latch
authors.affiliation: Department of Forestry and Natural Resources, 715 W. State Street, Purdue University, West Lafayette, IN, 47907, United States of America; Savannah River Ecology Laboratory, PO Drawer E, Aiken, SC, 29802, United States of America.
authors.forename: Olin E
authors.initials: OE
authors.lastname: Rhodes
mesh_terms: D000383:Agriculture; D063147:Animal Distribution; D000818:Animals; D017753:Ecosystem; D008957:Models, Genetic; D009068:Movement; D012589:Sciuridae