Data from: Habitat specialization predicts genetic response to fragmentation in tropical birds

Habitat fragmentation is one of the most severe threats to biodiversity as
it may lead to changes in population genetic structure, with ultimate
modifications of species evolutionary potential and local extinctions.
Nonetheless, fragmentation does not equally affect all species and
identifying which ecological traits are related to species sensitivity to
habitat fragmentation could help prioritization of conservation efforts.
Despite the theoretical link between species ecology and extinction
proneness, comparative studies explicitly testing the hypothesis that
particular ecological traits underlies species-specific population
structure are rare. Here, we used a comparative approach on eight bird
species, co-occurring across the same fragmented landscape. For each
species, we quantified relative levels of forest specialization and
genetic differentiation among populations. To test the link between forest
specialization and susceptibility to forest fragmentation, we assessed
species responses to fragmentation by comparing levels of genetic
differentiation between continuous and fragmented forest landscapes. Our
results revealed a significant and substantial population structure at a
very small spatial scale for mobile organisms such as birds. More
importantly, we found that specialist species are more affected by forest
fragmentation than generalist ones. Finally, our results suggest that even
a simple habitat specialization index can be a satisfying predictor of
genetic and demographic consequences of habitat fragmentation, providing a
reliable practical and quantitative tool for conservation biology.