Department of Environmental Studies, Elon University, Elon, NC, United States.
Department of Biological Sciences, Lehigh University, Bethlehem, PA, United States.
PeerJ. 2024 Oct 7;12:e17968. doi: 10.7717/peerj.17968. eCollection 2024.
Range disjunctions appear to be common in nature, although they may be caused by various factors. They may simply be an artefact of inadequate sampling. If real, they may be the result of colonization events or habitat change. With natural habitats showing increasing fragmentation because of human activity, understanding the cause of a disjunction can have important conservation implications. We investigate the geographical range of the Plains spadefoot toad, , a widely distributed species in the midwestern and southwestern United States, with a putative disjunct population in southern Texas. We combine GIS mapping, species distribution modeling, and population genetic analysis to investigate this putative disjunction. We establish that this southern Texas population is truly geographically disjunct and genetically distinct. Further, using climate projections we show that this unique population is at high risk of local extinction.
范围分离似乎在自然界中很常见，尽管它们可能是由各种因素引起的。它们可能只是抽样不足的一个产物。如果是真实的，它们可能是殖民事件或栖息地变化的结果。由于人类活动，自然栖息地的破碎化程度不断增加，了解分离的原因可能对保护具有重要意义。我们调查了平原铲足蟾（Scaphiopus holbrookii）的地理范围，这是一种分布广泛的物种，分布在美国中西部和西南部，在德克萨斯州南部有一个假定的分离种群。我们结合 GIS 制图、物种分布模型和种群遗传分析来研究这种假定的分离。我们确定这个德克萨斯州南部的种群确实在地理上是分离的，而且在遗传上是不同的。此外，我们利用气候预测模型表明，这个独特的种群面临着很高的局部灭绝风险。
