Abstract
Amphibians are often considered excellent environmental indicator species. Natural and man‐made landscape features are known to form effective genetic barriers to amphibian populations; however, amphibians with different characteristics may have different species–landscape interaction patterns. We conducted a comparative landscape genetic analysis of two closely related syntopic frog species from central China, Pelophylax nigromaculatus (PN) and Fejervarya limnocharis (FL). These two species differ in several key life history traits; PN has a larger body size and larger clutch size, and reaches sexual maturity later than FL. Microsatellite DNA data were collected and analyzed using conventional (F ST, isolation by distance (IBD), AMOVA) and recently developed (Bayesian assignment test, isolation by resistance) landscape genetic methods. As predicted, a higher level of population structure in FL (F ST′ = 0.401) than in PN (F ST′ = 0.354) was detected, in addition to FL displaying strong IBD patterns (r = .861) unlike PN (r = .073). A general north–south break in FL populations was detected, consistent with the IBD pattern, while PN exhibited clustering of northern‐ and southern‐most populations, suggestive of altered dispersal patterns. Species‐specific resistant landscape features were also identified, with roads and land cover the main cause of resistance to FL, and elevation the main influence on PN. These different species–landscape interactions can be explained mostly by their life history traits, revealing that closely related and ecologically similar species have different responses to the same landscape features. Comparative landscape genetic studies are important in detecting such differences and refining generalizations about amphibians in monitoring environmental changes.
Highlights
Landscape Genetics Landscape genetics is defined as the integration of landscape ecology and population genetics (Manel et al 2003)
Summary statistics for Genetic Diversity within Populations Genetic diversity indices for each site and species are presented in Tables 5 and 6
The highest number of alleles and expected heterozygosity was observed at site #8
Summary
Landscape Genetics Landscape genetics is defined as the integration of landscape ecology and population genetics (Manel et al 2003). Its analytical framework that seeks to quantify how the landscape structure affects gene flow and genetic variation makes it ideally suited for testing the effect of structural landscape connectivity (landscape components) on functional landscape connectivity (micro-evolutionary processes) (Storfer et al 2007; Holderegger & Wagner 2008; Storfer 2013) It aims to study connectivity in the landscape by integrating data from genes and information from landscape structure. Storfer et al (2007) proposed five major research categories of landscape genetics These types of studies can be those that seek to (1) quantify the influence of landscape structure on genetic variation; (2) identify barriers to gene flow; (3) identify source-sink dynamics and movement corridors; (4) explain ecological processes at spatial and temporal scales; and (5) test species-specific ecological hypotheses. Landscape genetic studies require two types of data namely landscape data and multi-locus genetic data (Storfer et al 2007)
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