Genetic structure and climate niche differentiation among populations of Leopardus geoffroyi.

ABSTRACT: Geoffroy's cat (Leopardus geoffroyi) is a small-sized felid native to South America. Given the species' distribution covering a wide variety of habitats, and the presence of high levels of anthropization in part of its range, it is possible that genetically differentiated groups exist and that they occupy different climatic niches. We assessed patterns of contemporary genetic diversity and structure in the species across most of its range, characterizing each inferred genetic group based on ecological niche models. We genotyped 11 microsatellites for 142 samples covering most of Geoffroy's cat distribution, and investigated patterns of genetic structure and diversity, applying spatial and nonspatial Bayesian clustering methods and a spatial principal component analysis. We created e

SUBMITTER: Fameli AF 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC11362614 | biostudies-literature | 2024 Sep

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature