Spatio-temporal Genetic Structure of a Tropical Bee Species Suggests High Dispersal Over a Fragmented Landscape.

ABSTRACT: Habitat destruction threatens biodiversity by reducing the amount of available resources and connectivity among geographic areas. For organisms living in fragmented habitats, population persistence may depend on dispersal, which maintains gene flow among fragments and can prevent inbreeding within them. It is centrally important to understand patterns of dispersal for bees living in fragmented areas given the importance of pollination systems and recently documented declines in bee populations. We used population and landscape genetic techniques to characterize patterns of dispersal over a large fragmented area in southern Costa Rica for the orchid bee species Euglossa championi. First, we estimated levels of genetic differentiation among forest fragments as φ_pt, an analo

SUBMITTER: Suni SS 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC3960006 | biostudies-literature | 2014 Mar

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature