Data from: Demographic history influences spatial patterns of genetic diversity in recently expanded coyote (Canis latrans) populations

Human-mediated range expansions have increased in recent decades and
represent unique opportunities to evaluate genetic outcomes of
establishing peripheral populations across broad expansion fronts. Over
the past century, coyotes (Canis latrans) have undergone a pervasive range
expansion and now inhabit every state in the continental United States.
Coyote expansion into eastern North America was facilitated by
anthropogenic landscape changes and followed two broad expansion fronts.
The northern expansion extended through the Great Lakes region and
southern Canada, where hybridization with remnant wolf populations was
common. The southern and more recent expansion front occurred
approximately 40 years later and across territory where gray wolves have
been historically absent and remnant red wolves were extirpated in the
1970s. We conducted a genetic survey at 10 microsatellite loci of 482
coyotes originating from 11 eastern U.S. states to address how divergent
demographic histories influence geographic patterns of genetic diversity.
We found that population structure corresponded to a north-south divide,
which is consistent with the two known expansion routes. Additionally, we
observed extremely high genetic diversity, which is atypical of recently
expanded populations and is likely the result of multiple complex
demographic processes, in addition to hybridization with other Canis
species. Finally, we considered the transition of allele frequencies
across geographic space and suggest the mid-Atlantic states of North
Carolina and Virginia as an emerging contact zone between these two
distinct coyote expansion fronts.