Data from: Genetic restoration in the eastern collared lizard under prescribed woodland burning

Eastern collared lizards of the Ozarks live in glades—open, rocky habitats embedded in a woodland matrix. Past fire suppression had made the woodlands a barrier to dispersal, leading to habitat destruction, fragmentation and local extinction. Reintroduced populations of lizards were subjected to 10 years of habitat fragmentation under continued fire suppression followed by twelve years of landscape restoration with prescribed burns. Prior to prescribed burning, genetic diversity decreased within glades and differentiation increased among glades. With woodland burning, genetic diversity within glades first decreased during an expanding colonization phase, but then increased as a dynamically stable metapopulation was established. Population differentiation among glades also stabilized in the metapopulation under weak isolation-by-distance. This study is one of the first to examine the genetic changes in a species of conservation concern throughout all the stages of decline and recovery and shows the importance of landscape-level restoration for maintaining the genetic integrity of populations. This study also demonstrates how mark–recapture and genetic data together can yield detailed insight into metapopulation dynamics that would be impossible from just one type of data alone.奥扎克地区的东部领蜥栖息于岩质林中空地——这类生境为嵌入林地基质中的开阔岩地生境。过往的森林防火措施使得林地成为种群扩散的障碍，进而引发生境破坏、片段化与局地灭绝。重新引入的蜥蜴种群首先在持续森林防火的背景下经历了10年的生境片段化阶段，随后开展了为期12年的计划性火烧（prescribed burns）景观修复工作。在实施计划性火烧前，各岩质林中空地内部的遗传多样性呈下降趋势，而不同岩质林中空地间的遗传分化程度则有所升高。随着林地火烧措施的推进，岩质林中空地内部的遗传多样性在种群扩张定殖阶段首先出现下降，但随着动态稳定集合种群（metapopulation）的建立，遗传多样性逐步回升。在该集合种群中，岩质林中空地间的种群分化也在微弱的距离隔离效应（isolation-by-distance）作用下趋于稳定。本研究是首批针对受保护物种在种群衰退与恢复全周期内遗传变化展开的研究之一，证实了景观尺度修复对维持种群遗传完整性的重要意义。本研究同时证明，结合标记重捕法（mark–recapture）与遗传数据，能够对集合种群动态获得仅依靠单一数据类型无法实现的深入解析。