Hit the road Jane! Roads decrease the relatedness for females lesser horseshoe bats

摘要: The understanding of how human-induced habitat disturbance shapes the contemporary population structure and gene flow at a fine-spatial scale is key for adequate management of species with small and fragmented populations and with limited dispersal abilities. To date, there are few studies focusing on how barriers (e.g. roads, habitat fragmentation) might influence gene flow at fine scales. Roads are known for causing millions of roadkill every year and for causing movement disruptions mainly for species with low dispersal abilities, thus changing the genetic structure of these populations. Some bat species, despite the high potential for dispersal, may show low dispersal movements due to high flight costs, which combined with a high vulnerability to roadkills, can have a strong effect on population structure. Moreover, differential sex-specific dispersal, often biased towards males is commonly observed on bat populations. Thus, we expect that females will possess strong local affinities, whereas males may act as genetic mediators among colonies. In this study, we investigated how landscape features drive the gene flow and sex-specific relatedness structure on a lesser horseshoe bat (Rhinolophus hipposideros) population. We combined multiple regressions on genetic distance matrices and spatially explicit analysis to fit models of genetic individuals- relatedness to landscape resistance surfaces. Genotyping involved 2,837 SNPs and 327 bat samples collected across a Mediterranean agroforestry system of southern Portugal. Our analysis based on relatedness structure supported the male-biased dispersal hypothesis. Females are thought …