Data from: Spatial replication is important for developing landscape genetic inferences for a wetland salamander

Habitat fragmentation is one of the most pressing threats to wildlife
populations. Maintenance of sustained dispersal and gene flow between
populations is essential and often the end goal of conservation action.
Use of resistance surfaces has emerged as an important strategy for
developing conservation management strategies to mitigate the effects of
habitat fragmentation (e.g., corridor design). However, recent studies
have noted inconsistencies across study sites in the factors most strongly
associated with genetic connectivity. Thus, replication of genetically
based resistance surface optimization across landscapes may be necessary
for making robust and generalizable conclusions about the influence of
environmental variables on gene flow and for generating comprehensive
predictions that can then be used by conservation practitioners in their
focal landscape. In this study, we conducted replicated landscape genetic
analyses across five sampling areas in Tennessee and Kentucky for a
threatened wetland-obligate salamander, the four-toed salamander
(Hemidactylium scutatum). We used genomic data to quantify fine-scale
population structure in each of our study landscapes. We then tested
multiple hypotheses of how different landscape features (e.g., canopy
cover) influenced connectivity and gene flow. We found some concordance in
the landscape features that were inferred to influence gene flow, but also
some differences, potentially owing to the difference in variability of
predictors at each site. Our work identifies landscape variables that may
be important for H. scutatum conservation, and our
replicated design allows us to identify important relationships that would
have been missed if only using only one study site were used.