The effect of habitat loss and fragmentation on isolation-by-distance and time

Gabriele Maria Sgarlata, Tiago Maié, Tiago de Zoeten, Rita Rasteiro, Lounès Chikhi

Research output: Contribution to journalArticle (Academic Journal)

Abstract

Throughout Earth’s natural history, habitats have undergone drastic changes in quality and extent, influencing the distribution of species and their diversity. In the last few hundred years, human activities have destroyed natural habitats at an unprecedent rate, converting continuous habitat into fragmented and isolated patches. Recent global metanalyses suggest that habitat loss and fragmentation (HLamp;F) has negatively impacted the genetic diversity of many taxa across the world. These conclusions have been drawn by comparing present-day genetic patterns from populations occurring in continuous and fragmented landscapes. In this work, we attempted to go beyond ‘pattern’ and investigate through simulations some of the ‘processes’ that influence genetic variation in the context of HLamp;F. Since most species have a geographically restricted dispersal (known as textquotedblleftisolation-by-distancetextquotedblright, IBD), we studied the impact of HLamp;F on isolation-by-distance. We characterised the behaviour of IBD in the case of i) instantaneous HLamp;F, ii) gradual (two-steps) HLamp;F, and iii) instantaneous HLamp;F following range expansion. In addition, we propose a spatially-explicit theoretical framework by modifying the original theoretical results on isolation-by-distance (Slatkin, 1991; Slatkin, 1993) and apply them to a toroidal stepping-stone model in the context of HLamp;F. Our results suggest that isolation-by-distance can be maintained for relatively long time after HLamp;F, thus pointing to the long-term importance of spatial genetic structure in species genetic diversity. In addition, our results may explain why present-day fragmented population still show significant IBD pattern although being disconnected.Competing Interest StatementThe authors have declared no competing interest.
Original languageEnglish
JournalbioRxiv
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 2022

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