Landscape genetic inferences vary with sampling scenario for a pond breeding amphibian

A critical decision in landscape genetic studies is whether to use individuals or populations as the sampling unit. This decision affects the time and cost of sampling and may affect ecological inference. We analyzed 334 Columbia spotted frogs at 8 microsatellite loci across 40 sites in northern Idaho to determine how inferences from landscape genetic analyses would vary with sampling design. At all sites, we compared a proportion available sampling scheme (PASS), in which all samples were used, to resampled datasets of 2-11 individuals. Additionally, we compared a population sampling scheme (PSS) to an individual sampling scheme (ISS) at 18 sites with sufficient sample size. We applied an information theoretic approach with both restricted maximum likelihood and maximum likelihood estimation to evaluate competing landscape resistance hypotheses. We found that PSS supported a low-density forest model (0.87) and ISS supported this model as well as additional models when testing hypothes...

景观遗传学研究中的一项核心决策，是选择以个体还是种群作为抽样单元（sampling unit）。该决策不仅会影响抽样所需的时间与成本，还可能对生态推断（ecological inference）的结果产生影响。为探究景观遗传学分析的推断结果如何随抽样设计发生变化，本研究针对爱达荷州北部40个采样点的8个微卫星位点（microsatellite loci），对334只哥伦比亚斑点蛙展开了分析。在所有采样点中，我们将全样本使用的可及比例抽样方案（proportion available sampling scheme, PASS）与包含2~11个个体的重采样数据集（resampled datasets）进行了对比；此外，在样本量（sample size）充足的18个采样点中，我们还对比了种群抽样方案（population sampling scheme, PSS）与个体抽样方案（individual sampling scheme, ISS）。本研究采用结合了限制性最大似然（restricted maximum likelihood）与最大似然估计（maximum likelihood estimation）的信息论方法（information theoretic approach），对竞争性景观抗性假说（landscape resistance hypotheses）进行评估。研究结果显示，种群抽样方案（PSS）支持低密度森林模型（权重为0.87），而个体抽样方案（ISS）在验证假说时……