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Songbird genetic diversity is lower in anthropogenically versus naturally fragmented landscapes

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Abstract

Natural habitats, and the populations they sustain, are becoming increasingly fragmented by human activities. Parallels between ‘true’ islands and ‘habitat’ islands suggest that standing levels of individual genetic diversity in naturally fragmented populations may predict the genetic fate of their anthropogenically fragmented counterparts, but this hypothesis remains largely untested. We compared neutral-locus genetic diversity of individual song sparrows (Melospiza melodia) breeding in a naturally fragmented landscape (small coastal islands) to that of song sparrows in similar-sized ‘urban islands’ separated by roads and housing developments rather than by water. Individuals on coastal islands were more heterozygous and less inbred than those in urban islands. Estimates of population genetic structuring (assessed by pairwise genetic differentiation and Bayesian clustering methods) and contemporary dispersal (based on assignment tests) revealed little structure within either landscape, suggesting that lack of connectivity at the geographic scale we investigated cannot explain the reduced heterozygosity of urban birds. However, within-site genetic similarity was higher in the urban than the coastal landscape. Assuming that historic genetic diversity was similar in these two environments, our findings suggest that anthropogenically fragmented populations may lose genetic diversity faster than their naturally fragmented counterparts.

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Acknowledgments

We thank B. Clinchy, C. de Ruyck, L. Erckman, A. Duncan-Rastogi, J. Malt and T. Sperry for assistance; B. C. Parks, the Saanich Municipality and private landholders for access; N. Keyghobadi, S. MacDougall-Shackleton, S. Riley and three anonymous referees for helpful comments; and NSERC Canada for funding. This research was approved by the University of Western Ontario’s Animal Use Subcommittee.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Biology, University of Western Ontario, 1151 Richmond Avenue, London, ON, N6A 5B7, Canada

    Elizabeth A. MacDougall-Shackleton, Liana Zanette & Bryan D. Neff

  2. Department of Biology, University of Victoria, Victoria, BC, V8W 3N5, Canada

    Michael Clinchy

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  1. Elizabeth A. MacDougall-Shackleton
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  2. Michael Clinchy
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  3. Liana Zanette
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  4. Bryan D. Neff
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Correspondence to Elizabeth A. MacDougall-Shackleton.

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MacDougall-Shackleton, E.A., Clinchy, M., Zanette, L. et al. Songbird genetic diversity is lower in anthropogenically versus naturally fragmented landscapes. Conserv Genet 12, 1195–1203 (2011). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10592-011-0222-0

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