Anthropogenic Habitats Facilitate Dispersal of an Early Successional Obligate: Implications for Restoration of an Endangered Ecosystem.

ABSTRACT: Landscape modification and habitat fragmentation disrupt the connectivity of natural landscapes, with major consequences for biodiversity. Species that require patchily distributed habitats, such as those that specialize on early successional ecosystems, must disperse through a landscape matrix with unsuitable habitat types. We evaluated landscape effects on dispersal of an early successional obligate, the New England cottontail (Sylvilagus transitionalis). Using a landscape genetics approach, we identified barriers and facilitators of gene flow and connectivity corridors for a population of cottontails in the northeastern United States. We modeled dispersal in relation to landscape structure and composition and tested hypotheses about the influence of habitat fragmentation on gene flow. A

SUBMITTER: Amaral KE 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC4783018 | biostudies-literature | 2016

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature