The effect of habitat loss and fragmentation on isolation by distance and divergence.

ABSTRACT: Natural habitats have undergone drastic changes in quality, continuity, and extent during the Pleistocene, influencing the distribution of many species. More recently, human activities have converted continuous habitats into fragmented and isolated patches. Recent meta-analyses suggest that habitat loss and fragmentation (HL&F) have negatively impacted the genetic diversity of species but very few studies have analyzed the consequences of HL&F on the spatial distribution of genetic diversity and on isolation by distance (IBD) patterns (i.e., correlations between genetic and geographical distances) observed in many species. In this work, we use spatial simulations to investigate the speed at which IBD patterns generated in continuous habitats are lost in a context of HL&F. We characterized

SUBMITTER: Sgarlata GM 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC12337350 | biostudies-literature | 2025 Aug

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature