Data from: Identification of source-sink dynamics in mountain lions of the Great Basin

Natural and anthropogenic boundaries have been shown to affect population
dynamics and population structure for many species with movement patterns
at the landscape level. Understanding population boundaries and movement
rates in the field for species that are cryptic and occur at low densities
is often extremely difficult and logistically prohibitive; however genetic
techniques may offer insights that have previously been unattainable. We
analyzed thirteen microsatellite loci for 739 mountain lions (Puma
concolor) using muscle tissue samples from individuals in the Great Basin
throughout Nevada and the eastern Sierra Nevada mountain range to test the
hypothesis that heterogeneous hunting pressure results in source-sink
dynamics at the landscape scale. We used a combination of non-spatial and
spatial model-based Bayesian clustering methods to identify genetic
populations. We then used a recently developed Bayesian multilocus
genotyping method to estimate asymmetrical rates of contemporary movement
between those sub-populations and to identify source and sink populations.
We identified 2 populations at the highest level of genetic structuring
with a total of 5 subpopulations in the Great Basin of Nevada and the
eastern Sierra Nevada range. Our results suggest that source-sink dynamics
occur at landscape scales for wide-ranging species, such as mountain
lions, and that source populations may be those that are under relatively
less hunting pressure and that occupy refugia.