Demography predicts genetic effective size in a desert stream fish community

Demographic data collected during long-term diversity monitoring and short-term ecological surveys were used to calculate summary statistics to compare with estimates of genetic effective size for nine species occurring in the Gila River, New Mexico, USA. Diversity survey data collected by New Mexico Department of Game and Fish from 1988 to 2010 were converted to presence/absence data to create detection histories for each of the nine focal species. Simple occupancy models of detection histories implemented using program PRESENCE were used to estimate the annual probability of sites becoming extirpated. A second data source from affiliated short-term ecological studies provided numbers of individuals captured and area sampled and was used to estimate mean density of adult individuals across sample sites. These data were also used to calculated an index of commonness that incorporates both relative abundance and study wide occupancy. Microsatellite genotypes from a previous study and Dry...