Two centuries of human‐mediated gene flow in northern bobwhites

Abstract

ABSTRACTThe northern bobwhite (Colinus virginianus; hereafter, bobwhite) population decline has prompted several studies over the past decade investigating bobwhite population genetics and overall connectivity. The zeitgeist of current quail conservation is that bobwhite populations have become increasingly fragmented, leading to their decline as a result of reduced fitness associated with effects from small population size. A few studies exploring population‐level patterns of genetic connectivity at the local scale have identified some areas possessing limited gene flow likely due to recent anthropogenic landscape changes. Interestingly, however, multiple studies using genetic methods have also suggested that the species has experienced a recent range‐wide expansion with few barriers to dispersal, suggesting a large panmictic population. Although the above are both supported by empirical data, we highlight another possibility that has been proposed yet rarely investigated. Millions of wild bobwhites have been transported among populations, and millions more captive‐reared bobwhites have been and continue to be released across the species’ range. Given the massive scale at which bobwhites have been artificially dispersed, more research is needed to investigate the effects of introgression of nonlocal birds on our ability to understand recent changes in bobwhite population fragmentation, size, and diversity. Such information has important management implications to long‐term bobwhite population sustainability. By quantifying the level of human‐mediated bobwhite dispersal events, our review cautions against assigning evolutionary or conservation significance to patterns of genetic connectivity among bobwhite populations until a more systematic effort is made to verify that such activities have not affected our ability to identify natural gene‐flow patterns at both local and broad‐scale distributions. © 2017 The Wildlife Society.