Genomics meets applied ecology: Characterizing habitat quality for sloths in a tropical agroecosystem.

Fountain, Emily D; Kang, Jung Koo; Tempel, Douglas J; Palsbøll, Per J; Pauli, Jonathan N; Zachariah Peery, M

Fountain, Emily D; Kang, Jung Koo; Tempel, Douglas J; Palsbøll, Per J; Pauli, Jonathan N; Zachariah Peery, M.

Afiliação

Fountain ED; Department of Forest and Wildlife Ecology, University of Wisconsin-Madison, Madison, WI, USA.
Kang JK; Department of Forest and Wildlife Ecology, University of Wisconsin-Madison, Madison, WI, USA.
Tempel DJ; Marine Evolution and Conservation, Groningen Institute of Evolutionary Life Sciences, University of Groningen, Groningen, The Netherlands.
Palsbøll PJ; Center of Quantitative Sciences in Biomedicine, Department of Mathematics, North Carolina State University, Raleigh, NC, USA.
Pauli JN; Department of Forest and Wildlife Ecology, University of Wisconsin-Madison, Madison, WI, USA.
Zachariah Peery M; Marine Evolution and Conservation, Groningen Institute of Evolutionary Life Sciences, University of Groningen, Groningen, The Netherlands.

Mol Ecol ; 27(1): 41-53, 2018 01.

Article em En | MEDLINE | ID: mdl-29080363

RESUMO

Understanding how habitat quality in heterogeneous landscapes governs the distribution and fitness of individuals is a fundamental aspect of ecology. While mean individual fitness is generally considered a key to assessing habitat quality, a comprehensive understanding of habitat quality in heterogeneous landscapes requires estimates of dispersal rates among habitat types. The increasing accessibility of genomic approaches, combined with field-based demographic methods, provides novel opportunities for incorporating dispersal estimation into assessments of habitat quality. In this study, we integrated genomic kinship approaches with field-based estimates of fitness components and approximate Bayesian computation (ABC) procedures to estimate habitat-specific dispersal rates and characterize habitat quality in two-toed sloths (Choloepus hoffmanni) occurring in a Costa Rican agricultural ecosystem. Field-based observations indicated that birth and survival rates were similar in a sparsely shaded cacao farm and adjacent cattle pasture-forest mosaic. Sloth density was threefold higher in pasture compared with cacao, whereas home range size and overlap were greater in cacao compared with pasture. Dispersal rates were similar between the two habitats, as estimated using ABC procedures applied to the spatial distribution of pairs of related individuals identified using 3,431 single nucleotide polymorphism and 11 microsatellite locus genotypes. Our results indicate that crops produced under a sparse overstorey can, in some cases, constitute lower-quality habitat than pasture-forest mosaics for sloths, perhaps because of differences in food resources or predator communities. Finally, our study demonstrates that integrating field-based demographic approaches with genomic methods can provide a powerful means for characterizing habitat quality for animal populations occurring in heterogeneous landscapes.

Assuntos

Agricultura; Ecologia; Ecossistema; Genômica; Bichos-Preguiça/genética; Clima Tropical; Animais; Costa Rica; Feminino; Geografia; Comportamento de Retorno ao Território Vital

Palavras-chave

agroecosystem; dispersal; genomics; habitat quality; kinship; sloths

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Texto completo: 1 Coleções: 01-internacional Base de dados: MEDLINE Assunto principal: Bichos-Preguiça / Clima Tropical / Ecossistema / Genômica / Agricultura / Ecologia Tipo de estudo: Prognostic_studies Limite: Animals País/Região como assunto: America central / Costa rica Idioma: En Revista: Mol Ecol Assunto da revista: BIOLOGIA MOLECULAR / SAUDE AMBIENTAL Ano de publicação: 2018 Tipo de documento: Article País de afiliação: Estados Unidos País de publicação: Reino Unido

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