Journal article
Urban landscape genetics: canopy cover predicts gene flow between white-footed mouse (Peromyscus leucopus) populations in New York City
Molecular ecology, v 21(6), pp 1360-1378
Mar 2012
Abstract
In this study, I examine the influence of urban canopy cover on gene flow between 15 white-footed mouse (Peromyscus leucopus) populations in New York City parklands. Parks in the urban core are often highly fragmented, leading to rapid genetic differentiation of relatively nonvagile species. However, a diverse array of ‘green’ spaces may provide dispersal corridors through ‘grey’ urban infrastructure. I identify urban landscape features that promote genetic connectivity in an urban environment and compare the success of two different landscape connectivity approaches at explaining gene flow. Gene flow was associated with ‘effective distances’ between populations that were calculated based on per cent tree canopy cover using two different approaches: (i) isolation by effective distance (IED) that calculates the single best pathway to minimize passage through high-resistance (i.e. low canopy cover) areas, and (ii) isolation by resistance (IBR), an implementation of circuit theory that identifies all low-resistance paths through the landscape. IBR, but not IED, models were significantly associated with three measures of gene flow (Nm from FST, BayesAss+ and Migrate-n) after factoring out the influence of isolation by distance using partial Mantel tests. Predicted corridors for gene flow between city parks were largely narrow, linear parklands or vegetated spaces that are not managed for wildlife, such as cemeteries and roadway medians. These results have implications for understanding the impacts of urbanization trends on native wildlife, as well as for urban reforestation efforts that aim to improve urban ecosystem processes.
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Details
- Title
- Urban landscape genetics: canopy cover predicts gene flow between white-footed mouse (Peromyscus leucopus) populations in New York City
- Creators
- Jason Munshi-South - Baruch College
- Publication Details
- Molecular ecology, v 21(6), pp 1360-1378
- Publisher
- Wiley
- Number of pages
- 19
- Grant note
- National Science Foundation: DEB 0817259
This work was funded by the National Science Foundation (DEB 0817259) and two grants from the Professional Staff Congress-CUNY. Five anonymous reviewers provided very helpful comments in revising the manuscript. I thank the National Park Service, New York State Department of Environmental Conservation, Natural Resources Group of the NYC Dept. of Parks and Recreation, the Central Park Conservancy, Regina Alvarez, Ellen Pehek and Jessica Arcate Schuler for access to NYC study sites. I thank David Burg, Catherine Burns, Paolo Cocco, Jonathan Grindley, Stephen Harris, Kerstin Kalchmayr, Olga Lavinda, Luca Pozzi and Miguel Rivera for their invaluable help collecting samples in the field. Katerina Kharchenko worked tirelessly in the laboratory to generate the genotypic data for this project. Mary Blair provided ArcGIS scripts and much advice on spatial connectivity modelling.
- Resource Type
- Journal article
- Language
- English
- Academic Unit
- Biodiversity, Earth, and Environmental Science (BEES)
- Web of Science ID
- WOS:000301116000006
- Scopus ID
- 2-s2.0-84858082085
- Other Identifier
- 991021903708904721
InCites Highlights
Data related to this publication, from InCites Benchmarking & Analytics tool:
- Web of Science research areas
- Biochemistry & Molecular Biology
- Ecology
- Evolutionary Biology