The American Kestrel (Falco sparverius) genoscape: implications for monitoring, management, and subspecies boundaries

Identifying population genetic structure is useful for inferring evolutionary process as well as defining subspecies boundaries and/or conservation units that can aid in species management. The American kestrel (Falco sparverius) is a widespread species with two described North American subspecies, (F. s. sparverius  and  F. s. paulus), the latter in the southeastern United States and the former across the remainder of its distribution.  In many parts of their range, American kestrels have been declining, but it has been difficult to interpret demographic trends without a clearer understanding of gene flow among populations.  Here we sequence the first American kestrel genome and scan the genome of 197 individuals from 12 sampling locations across the range of the two North American subspecies to identify population structure.  To validate signatures of population structure and fill in sampling gaps across the breeding range we screen 192 outlier loci in an additional 376 samples from 3...