Data from: Comparative landscape genetic analyses show a Belgian motorway to be a gene flow barrier for red deer (Cervus elaphus), but not wild boars (Sus scrofa)

While motorways are often assumed to influence the movement behaviour of large mammals, there are surprisingly few studies that show an influence of these linear structures on the genetic make-up of wild ungulate populations. Here, we analyse the spatial genetic structure of red deer (Cervus elaphus) and wild boars (Sus scrofa) along a stretch of motorway in the Walloon part of Belgium. Altogether 876 red deer were genotyped at 13 microsatellite loci, and 325 wild boars at 14 loci. In the case of the red deer, different genetic clustering tools identified two genetic subpopulations whose borders matched the motorway well. Conversely, no genetic structure was identified in the case of the wild boar. Analysis of isolation-by-distance patterns of pairs of individuals on the same side and on different sides of the motorway also suggested that the road was a barrier to red deer, but not to wild boar movement. While telemetry studies seem to confirm that red deer are more affected by motorways then wild boar, the red deer sample size was also much larger than that of the wild boars. We therefore repeated the analysis of genetic structure in the red deer with randomly sub-sampled datasets of decreasing size. The power to detect the genetic structure using clustering methods decreased with decreasing sample size.

尽管人们通常认为高速公路会影响大型哺乳动物的移动行为，但鲜有研究证实这类线性结构会对野生有蹄类种群的遗传组成产生影响。本研究针对比利时瓦隆大区的一段高速公路沿线，分析了马鹿（Cervus elaphus）和野猪（Sus scrofa）的空间遗传结构。共计对876头马鹿的13个微卫星位点进行了基因分型，对325头野猪的14个位点完成了基因分型。针对马鹿而言，不同的遗传聚类工具均鉴定出两个遗传亚种群，其种群边界与该高速公路的走向高度吻合。反之，研究未在野猪种群中检测到任何遗传结构。对高速公路同侧与异侧个体对的距离隔离模式进行分析后，同样表明该公路对马鹿的移动构成障碍，但未对野猪的移动产生类似影响。尽管无线电遥测研究似乎证实马鹿比野猪更易受到高速公路的影响，但马鹿的样本量也远大于野猪。为此，我们采用逐步递减的随机子采样数据集，重复开展马鹿遗传结构的分析，结果显示，利用聚类方法检测遗传结构的效力会随样本量的减少而降低。