Regional replication of landscape genetics analyses of the Mississippi slimy salamander, Plethodon mississippi

Context

Landscape genetics can identify habitat features that facilitate or resist gene flow, providing a framework for anticipating the impacts of land use changes on dispersal of individuals. To inform management, a better understanding of how inferences derived from one study region are applicable to other regions is needed.

Objectives

We investigated the manner in which five landscape variables correlated with gene flow among Plethodon mississippi populations in two study regions. We compared order of importance, direction (facilitation vs. resistance of gene flow) and scale of effect, and functional relationships of variables within each study area.

Methods

In forests in Mississippi and Alabama, USA, we tested individual-based genetic distances derived from microsatellite genotypes against effective distances caused by agriculture, hardwoods, pine, manmade structures, and wetlands that were optimized for both scale and transformation using maximum likelihood populati...