Measuring sex-biased dispersal in social mammals: comparisons of nuclear and mitochondrial genes in collared peccaries

Abstract

Abstract The collared peccary (Pecari tajacu) is a social species that recently has expanded its historical range, yet little is known of its dispersal behavior at the population or biogeographic level. We used autosomal and cytoplasmic markers to assess whether the genetic variation among 4 populations in Texas retains a signal of historically recent founding events. Genetic differentiation based on mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) haplotype frequencies (FST) among these 4 populations was substantial. The mtDNA haplotype mismatch distributions indicate that P. tajacu recently has expanded its range across Texas; however, microsatellite-based standard analyses of molecular variance (AMOVAs) and pairwise FST estimates indicated little variation among populations, suggesting that dispersal is accomplished primarily by males. We also tested the alternative power of mtDNA haplotype or microsatellite genotype distribution patterns to detect a sex bias in instantaneous short-distance dispersal. Sex-specific hierarchic...