Related Experiment Video
Updated: Jun 7, 2025

A Noninvasive Hair Sampling Technique to Obtain High Quality DNA from Elusive Small Mammals
Published on: March 13, 2011
Genetic connectivity of wolverines in western North America
Casey C Day1, Erin L Landguth2, Michael A Sawaya3
1University of Montana, 32 Campus Drive, Missoula, MT, 59812, USA. casey.day@mso.umt.edu.
Abstract:
Wolverine distribution contracted along the southern periphery of its range in North America during the 19th and 20th centuries due primarily to human influences. This history, along with low densities, sensitivity to climate change, and concerns about connectivity among fragmented habitats spurred the recent US federal listing of threatened status and special concern status in Canada. To help inform large scale landscape connectivity, we collected 882 genetic samples genotyped at 19 microsatellite loci. We employed multiple statistical models to assess the landscape factors (terrain complexity, human disturbance, forest configuration, and climate) associated with wolverine genetic connectivity across 2.2 million km2 of southwestern Canada and the northwestern contiguous United States. Genetic similarity (positive spatial autocorrelation) of wolverines was detected up to 555 km and a high-to-low gradient of genetic diversity occurred from north-to-south. Landscape genetics analyses confirmed that wolverine genetic connectivity has been negatively influenced by human disturbance at broad scales and positively influenced by forest cover and snow persistence at fine- and broad-scales, respectively. This information applied across large landscapes can be used to guide management actions with the goal of maintaining or restoring population connectivity.
More Related Videos
09:09Protocol for Assessing the Relative Effects of Environment and Genetics on Antler and Body Growth for a Long-lived Cervid
Published on: August 8, 2017
07:17Deploying Community Scientists to Conduct Nondestructive Genetic Sampling of Rare Butterfly Populations
Published on: October 28, 2022
Related Concept Videos
Conservation of Small Populations
Genetics of Speciation
Threats to Biodiversity
Gene Flow
Animal Mitochondrial Genetics
Habitat Fragmentation