Spatial and temporal genetic structure at the fourth trophic level in a fragmented landscape

A fragmented habitat becomes increasingly fragmented for species at higher trophic levels, such as parasitoids. To persist, these species are expected to possess life-history traits, such as high dispersal, that facilitate their ability to use resources that become scarce in fragmented landscapes. If a specialized parasitoid disperses widely to take advantage of a sparse host, then the parasitoid population should have lower genetic structure than the host. We investigated the temporal and spatial genetic structure of a hyperparasitoid (fourth trophic level) in a fragmented landscape over 50 × 70 km, using microsatellite markers, and compared it with the known structures of its host parasitoid, and the butterfly host which lives as a classic metapopulation. We found that population genetic structure decreases with increasing trophic level. The hyperparasitoid has fewer genetic clusters (K = 4), than its host parasitoid (K = 15), which in turn is less structured than the host butterfly (...