When you live in the outskirts of the city, every once in a while you may spot a bobcat in your neighborhood. In fact, we have had a few urban observation posts of neighborhood bobcats. But how are these urban bobcats fairing compared to ones that stay in their natural habitat?
Recently, Kozakiewicz and co-authors set out to find what landscape features influence bobcat genetic connectivity, with a special interest in urban landscapes. They sampled 271 bobcats across southern California and genotyped 13,520 SNPs to identify patterns of genetic connectivity.
Across the broad scale sampling, urbanization (mostly highways/roads) was the strongest factor that reduced genetic connectivity, breaking apart the bobcat populations into 5 distinct subpopulations. Interestingly, within each of these 5 populations, there was also an effect of urbanization on genetic connectivity. For example, high impervious surface, which is highly correlated to the level of urbanization, restricted gene flow within two of the subpopulations. However, this effect was not also significant within populations, which suggests that there is spatial heterogeneity within these subpopulations that allows for gene flow between less urbanized patches.
I am interested in urban ecology and evolution. Urbanization can have drastic impacts on local ecosystems, both negative and positive, and creates a new environment for organisms to experience. To understand the impacts that urbanization plays on organisms, I look through the lense of population genetics and molecular evolution.
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