A Landscape Ecologist’s Agenda for Landscape Genetics

Abstract

This review examines the landscape genetics literature from 2011–2015 and summarises the genetic evidence for the roles of habitat amount (i.e. total area of habitat), configuration (i.e. spatial arrangement of habitat), and matrix (i.e. nature of the intervening landscape between habitat patches) in shaping genetic differentiation and diversity of populations. We found that the vast majority of landscape genetic studies focused on the effects of habitat configuration and intervening matrix permeability on genetic differentiation of populations, and very few consider the consequences of habitat loss (i.e. change in habitat amount) versus fragmentation per se (i.e. change in habitat configuration). In addition, disproportionately few studies consider genetic diversity as a response variable in landscape genetic models. We argue that by ignoring the effects of habitat amount, landscape geneticists are missing an important component of how landscape structure shapes patterns of genetic variation. On the other hand, landscape ecologists may need to consider the confounding role of the matrix to resolve the ongoing debate about the relative importance of habitat loss versus fragmentation per se in determining biological diversity.