Resource description:
Aim: Connectivity conservation is ideally based on empirical information on how landscape heterogeneity influences species- specific movement and gene flow. Here, we present the first large-scale evaluation of landscape impacts on genetic connectivity in the European wildcat (Felis silvestris), a flagship and umbrella species for connectivity conservation across Europe.
Location: The study was carried out in the core area of the distributional range of wildcats in Germany, covering about 186,000 km2 of a densely populated and highly fragmented landscape.
Methods: We used data of 975 wildcats genotyped at 14 microsatellites and an individual-based landscape genetic framework to assess the importance of twelve landscape variables for explaining observed genetic connectivity. For this, we optimised landscape resistance surfaces for all variables and compared their relative impacts using multiple regression on distance matrices and commonality analysis
Author/Contact:
Katharina Westekemper, Annika Tiesmeyer, Katharina Steyer, Carsten Nowak, Johannes Signer, Niko Balkenhol