Cooperative Fish and Wildlife Research Units Program: Oklahoma
Education, Research and Technical Assistance for Managing Our Natural Resources

Landscape complexity provides opportunities for local adaptation and creates population genetic structure at limited geographic scales. We determined if fine-scale genetic structure was evident in a population of ringtails (Bassariscus astutus) inhabiting the Guadalupe Mountains, a small, isolated, and ecologically diverse mountain range in the southwest United States. We hypothesized that ringtails would exhibit either a genetic pattern of isolation by distance (IBD), because their small body size would most likely limit dispersal distances, or a pattern of isolation by resistance (IBR), because the topographical complexity of the mountain range would result in complex dispersal patterns. To investigate for the presence of fine-scale genetic structure in this population, we genotyped 153 ringtails at 15 microsatellite loci and described genetic structure using 2 Bayesian clustering techniques. Six genetic clusters were identified revealing complex spatial genetic structure within a localized geographic area. We used partial Mantel tests to test for a correlation between genetic distance and geographic distance or resistance distance but found no evidence for a genetic pattern related to IBD or IBR. We subsequently tested for an association between genetic structure and isolation by environment (IBE) using a discriminant function analysis and classified a high proportion of individuals (> 91%) to their observed genetic cluster based exclusively on landscape features. We also used a nonparametric, multivariate analysis of variance to further explore the role of land-cover type and found that plant association explained 26% of the genetic variation. These results suggest that IBE influences the genetic structure of ringtails at local geographic scales, a finding that deserves consideration in conservation planning.