Abstract
Anthropogenic landscapes influence evolutionary processes such as population genetic differentiation, however, not every type of landscape features exert the same effect on a species, hence it is necessary to estimate their relative effect for species management and conservation. Przewalski's gazelle (Procapra przewalskii), which inhabits a human-altered area on Qinghai-Tibet Plateau, is one of the most endangered antelope species in the world. Here, we report a landscape genetic study on Przewalski's gazelle. We used skin and fecal samples of 169 wild gazelles collected from nine populations and thirteen microsatellite markers to assess the genetic effect of anthropogenic landscape features on this species. For comparison, the genetic effect of geographical distance and topography were also evaluated. We found significant genetic differentiation, six genetic groups and restricted dispersal pattern in Przewalski's gazelle. Topography, human settlement and road appear to be responsible for observed genetic differentiation as they were significantly correlated with both genetic distance measures [FST/(1−FST) and F′ST/(1−F′ST)] in Mantel tests. IBD (isolation by distance) was also inferred as a significant factor in Mantel tests when genetic distance was measured as FST/(1−FST). However, using partial Mantel tests, AICc calculations, causal modeling and AMOVA analysis, we found that human settlement was the main factor shaping current genetic differentiation among those tested. Altogether, our results reveal the relative influence of geographical distance, topography and three anthropogenic landscape-type on population genetic differentiation of Przewalski's gazelle and provide useful information for conservation measures on this endangered species.
Highlights
The potential effect of landscape features on dispersal and population differentiation of wild animals has been well recognized [1]
F9ST presented larger global and pairwise values than F-statistics analysis (Table 4), suggesting a higher level of actual genetic differentiation than indicated by Fstatistics, the differentiation pattern inferred from F9ST and Fstatistics results were largely consistent
In the Barrier analysis using either FST or F9ST matrices, we found five genetic discontinuities and seven groups (Figure 2) which are largely in accordance with the observed pattern of genetic differentiation
Summary
The potential effect of landscape features on dispersal and population differentiation of wild animals has been well recognized [1]. With the rapid expansion of human population and associated land use, concerns have been raised about the influence of anthropogenic landscape features because they could impede gene flow, lead to population isolation and genetic differentiation [2,3], and reduce genetic variation and evolutionary potential [4,5]. Despite some studies on the genetic effect of certain anthropogenic landscape type such as road [5,11], most previous researches in this field have tended to present the total effect of different anthropogenic landscapes. We carried out a landscape genetic study on Przewalski’s gazelle (Procapra przewalskii), which inhabits a human-altered area on the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau in central Asia, to investigate the relative genetic effect of different types of landscape features
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