Small but connected islands can maintain populations and genetic diversity under climate change

In response to the striking effects of environmental change, conservation strategies often include the identification of conservation areas that can effectively maintain vulnerable species. Consequently, identifying system-specific conditions that maintain the demographic and genetic viability of species of conservation concern is essential. Connectivity plays a critical role in the persistence of populations. Islands have been model systems to understand connectivity and metapopulation processes and have emerged as particularly favorable targets for conservation. While islands can be isolated from mainland disturbances, it is unknown what degree of isolation is necessary to avoid unfavorable changes but remain sufficiently connected to maintain population viability. To test this question, we explored connectivity within the Apostle Islands, an archipelago of 22 islands within Lake Superior, by comparing historical and contemporary trends in ice bridge connectivity and by simulating the..., , , # Small but connected islands can maintain populations and genetic diversity under climate change

[https://doi.org/10.5061/dryad.h70rxwdsd](https://doi.org/10.5061/dryad.h70rxwdsd)

Summary statistics and genetic data of American martens on the Apostle Islands collected between 2017 and 2019. This dataset was used to parameterize an individual based model to infer parameters of survival and migration. Then simulate a population forward in time to track changes in genetic diversity.

## Description of the data and file structure

`Smith_and_Pauli_2024_Ecography_summary_statistics.csv` - Observed population size, allelic richness, and observed heterozygosity by island used as summary statistics in approximate Bayesian computation to infer parameter values.

`Smith_and_Pauli_2024_Ecography_starting_genotypes.csv` - File contains multilocus genotypes of individuals used in the analysis with a unique ID column and island identifier. Each microsatellite marker is represented by two columns.
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