Abstract
The genetic structure of a population can provide important insights into animal movements at varying geographical scales. Individual and social behaviors, such as philopatry and dispersal, affect patterns of relatedness, age and sex structure, shaping the local genetic structure of populations. However, these fine scale patterns may not be detected within broader population genetic structure. Using SNP genotyping for pairwise relatedness estimates, we investigated the spatial and genetic structuring of 141 red foxes within south-central Sweden at two scales. First, we looked at broad scale population structuring among red foxes at the regional level. We then estimated pairwise relatedness values to evaluate the spatial and genetic structure of male, female and mixed sex pairs for patterns of philopatry and dispersal at a more localized scale. We found limited genetic differentiation at the regional scale. However, local investigations revealed patterns of female philopatry and male biased dispersal. There were significant differences in pairwise geographic distances between highly related same sex pairs with the average distance between related males, 37.8 km, being six times farther than that of related females, averaging 6.3 km. In summary, the low levels of genetic differentiation found in this study illustrates the mobility and dispersal ability of red foxes across scales. However, relatedness plays a strong role in the spatial organization of red foxes locally, ultimately contributing to male biased dispersal patterns.
Highlights
Dispersal is a key driver of gene flow across space, linking populations both demographically and genetically (Clobert et al 2001)
Genetic material collected from 180 red fox samples yielded 141 individual genotypes (54 females, 82 males, 5 unknown sex) of which 91 (32 females and 59 males) were fitted with Global Positioning System (GPS) collars (Table 1)
Our study highlights differing patterns of red fox genetic structure depending on spatial scale and sex
Summary
Dispersal is a key driver of gene flow across space, linking populations both demographically and genetically (Clobert et al 2001). Local gene flow patterns, where short distance movements, philopatric behavior or inbreeding avoidance influence patterns of relatedness, age and sex structure, can shape the genetic structure of populations considerably. Such fine scale patterns may not be detected within broader population genetic structure (Rousset 2001). The use of GPS telemetry for studying animal movements has dramatically increased, enhancing our ability to collect detailed movement data from wild and elusive, free-ranging animals (Cagnacci et al 2010) Together, these tools can be used for investigation into factors jointly affecting animal dispersal, spatial and social organization, population dynamics and genetic structuring (Morales et al 2010)
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