Department of Anthropology, The Graduate Center, City University of New York, New York, NY 10016, USA.
The New York Consortium in Evolutionary Primatology (NYCEP), New York, NY 10065, USA.
Genes (Basel). 2023 Mar 18;14(3):746. doi: 10.3390/genes14030746.
Dispersal is a fundamental aspect of primates' lives and influences both population and community structuring, as well as species evolution. Primates disperse within an environmental context, where both local and intervening environmental factors affect all phases of dispersal. To date, research has primarily focused on how the intervening landscape influences primate dispersal, with few assessing the effects of local habitat characteristics. Here, we use a landscape genetics approach to examine between- and within-site environmental drivers of short-range black-and-white ruffed lemur () dispersal in the Ranomafana region of southeastern Madagascar. We identified the most influential drivers of short-range ruffed lemur dispersal as being between-site terrain ruggedness and canopy height, more so than any within-site habitat characteristic evaluated. Our results suggest that ruffed lemurs disperse through the least rugged terrain that enables them to remain within their preferred tall-canopied forest habitat. Furthermore, we noted a scale-dependent environmental effect when comparing our results to earlier landscape characteristics identified as driving long-range ruffed lemur dispersal. We found that forest structure drives short-range dispersal events, whereas forest presence facilitates long-range dispersal and multigenerational gene flow. Together, our findings highlight the importance of retaining high-quality forests and forest continuity to facilitate dispersal and maintain functional connectivity in ruffed lemurs.
扩散是灵长类动物生活的一个基本方面，它影响着种群和群落结构以及物种进化。灵长类动物在环境背景下扩散，其中本地和中间环境因素影响扩散的所有阶段。迄今为止，研究主要集中在中间景观如何影响灵长类动物的扩散，很少评估当地栖息地特征的影响。在这里，我们使用景观遗传学方法来研究马达加斯加东南部拉诺马法纳地区短距离黑白毛丝鼠（）扩散的站点间和站点内环境驱动因素。我们确定了短距离毛丝鼠扩散的最具影响力的驱动因素是站点间地形崎岖度和树冠高度，这比评估的任何站点内栖息地特征都更重要。我们的研究结果表明，毛丝鼠通过最崎岖的地形进行扩散，这使它们能够留在其偏好的高大树冠森林栖息地内。此外，我们注意到在将我们的结果与早期被确定为驱动长毛丝鼠扩散的景观特征进行比较时存在一种依赖于尺度的环境效应。我们发现森林结构驱动短距离扩散事件，而森林存在则促进长距离扩散和多代基因流。总的来说，我们的研究结果强调了保留高质量森林和森林连续性的重要性，以促进扩散并维持毛丝鼠的功能连通性。
