Everything you always wanted to know about gene flow in tropical landscapes (but were afraid to ask)

PeerJ

article

Waléria Pereira Monteiro¹  Jamille Costa Veiga²  Amanda Reis Silva³  Carolina da Silva Carvalho¹  Éder Cristian Malta Lanes¹  Yessica Rico⁴  Rodolfo Jaffé¹ 

[1] Instituto Tecnológico Vale;Instituto de Ciências Biológicas, Universidade Federal do Pará;Departamento de Botânica;CONACYT, Red de Diversidad Biológica del Occidente Mexicano, Instituto de Ecología;Departamento de Ecologia, Universidade de São Paulo

关键词: Functional connectivity;    Landscape genetics;    Isolation by resistance;    Matrix permeability;    Tropical biodiversity;   

DOI  :  10.7717/peerj.6446

学科分类：社会科学、人文和艺术（综合）

来源: Inra

【 摘 要 】

The bulk of the world’s biodiversity is found in tropical regions, which are increasingly threatened by the human-led degradation of natural habitats. Yet, little is known about tropical biodiversity responses to habitat loss and fragmentation. Here we review all available literature assessing landscape effects on gene flow in tropical species, aiming to help unravel the factors underpinning functional connectivity in the tropics. We map and classify studies by focus species, the molecular markers employed, statistical approaches to assess landscape effects on gene flow, and the evaluated landscape and environmental variables. We then compare qualitatively and quantitatively landscape effects on gene flow across species and units of analysis. We found 69 articles assessing landscape effects on gene flow in tropical organisms, most of which were published in the last five years, were concentrated in the Americas, and focused on amphibians or mammals. Most studies employed population-level approaches, microsatellites were the preferred type of markers, and Mantel and partial Mantel tests the most common statistical approaches used. While elevation, land cover and forest cover were the most common gene flow predictors assessed, habitat suitability was found to be a common predictor of gene flow. A third of all surveyed studies explicitly assessed the effect of habitat degradation, but only 14 of these detected a reduced gene flow with increasing habitat loss. Elevation was responsible for most significant microsatellite-based isolation by resistance effects and a single study reported significant isolation by non-forested areas in an ant. Our study reveals important knowledge gaps on the study of landscape effects on gene flow in tropical organisms, and provides useful guidelines on how to fill them.

【 授权许可】

CC BY