Name: João Luiz Guedes da Fonseca
Type: MSc dissertation
Publication date: 24/02/2017
Advisor:
Name |
Role |
|---|---|
| Yuri Luiz Reis Leite | Advisor * |
Examining board:
| Name |
Role |
|---|---|
| Lena Geise | External Examiner * |
| Sarah Maria Vargas | Internal Examiner * |
| Vilacio Caldara Junior | External Alternate * |
| Yuri Luiz Reis Leite | Advisor * |
Summary: The structure, configuration, and amount of habitat available in the environment helps to determine the genetic viability of a population or species. In landscape genetics, concepts of landscape ecology and population genetics are used together to assess the structural connectivity of the environment in order to allow the understanding of the functional connectivity of populations in the landscape. Marmosops incanus is a forest-dependent dystrophic marsupial with wide distribution in the Atlantic Forest biome that is found in greater abundance in a continuous forest environment in some regions, but in more fragmented environments in other regions, such as in Espírito Santo. In this work, we compared the genetic structure of M. incanus in landscapes of Atlantic Forest of Espírito Santo through resistance isolation techniques with the objective of identifying the genetic connectivity and possible routes of gene flow among populations. We used eight loci of microsatellite markers to evaluate the structure, divergence and genetic diversity in 13 locations. We also tested the hypothesis that the amount of forest in the different landscapes is determinant for the diversity and genetic distinction of the species. Marmosops incanus is structured in six distinct genetic clusters: four north of the Doce River, which had the greatest genetic isolation, and two to the south, including the largest cluster (denominated Center-South), formed by six sites with large gene flow and high values ​​of Allelic wealth. The results obtained point to different genetic responses of the species to the fragmentation to the north and south of the Doce River. In general, populations of M. incanus in continuous forest environments to the north are more genetically isolated than populations in more fragmented habitats in the southern state. The maps of the possible routes of gene flow indicate that this is mainly due to the configuration of the remaining fragments. Caution should be exercised when extrapolating landscape genetics results found in one region to another and that the configuration of the landscape habitat is more determinant for the genetic health of forest species than the amount of habitat.
Key words: connectivity, Didelphidae, resistance isolation, landscape genetics, microsatellites.
