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Potential barriers to gene flow in the endangered European wildcat (Felis silvestris)

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Abstract

The European wildcat (Felis silvestris silvestris) is a focal species for conservation in many European countries. After a severe population decline during the 19th century, many populations became extinct or isolated. Within Germany, suitable wildcat habitat is assumed to be highly fragmented. We thus investigated fine-scale genetic structure of wildcat populations in Central Germany across two major potential barriers, the Rhine River with its valley and a major highway. We analyzed 260 hair and tissue samples collected between 2006 and 2011 in the Taunus and Hunsrück mountain ranges (3,500 km2 study area). We identified 188 individuals by genotyping 14 microsatellite loci, and found significant genetic substructure in the study area. Both the Rhine River and the highway were identified as significant barrier to gene flow. While the long-term effect of the river has led to stronger genetic differentiation in the river compared to the highway, estimates of current gene flow and relatedness across barriers indicated a similar or even stronger barrier effect to ongoing wildcat dispersal of the highway. Despite these barrier effects, we found evidence for the presence of recent migration across both the river and the highway. Our study thus suggests that although wildcats have the capability of dispersal across major anthropogenic and natural landscape barriers, these structures still lead to an effective isolation of populations as reflected by genetic analysis. The results strengthen the need for currently ongoing national strategies of wildcat conservation aiming for large scale habitat connectivity.

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Acknowledgments

We are grateful to numerous persons who helped to conduct this research in the federal states of Hesse and Rhineland-Palatine, in particular to Martina Denk for data collection and the Hessen-Forst-Forsteinrichtung und Naturschutz (FENA) for kind permission of data use in the Rheingau-Taunus region. Olaf Simon (Institut für Tierökologie und Naturbildung), Thomas Mölich and Burkhard Vogel (Bund für Umwelt und Naturschutz, BUND), and Peter Haase (Senckenberg Research Institute and Natural History Museum) provided valuable help and discussion. We are particularly grateful to Alain Frantz for providing help in analysis and data interpretation, and to Peter Beerli for supporting us in making good choices for settings in MIGRATE-n. Kyle Tomlinson helped revising the English of the present paper, and extensive comments of Seth Riley, two anonymous reviewers, and the guest editor Niko Balkenhol improved the quality of paper. Further thanks go to Paul Peitz, Dietrich Nord and Doris Warlich for their interest in the project and patrolling lure sticks. We thank K. Volmer, W. Hecht, S. Steeb (University of Gießen), for providing coordinates. MIGRATE-n calculations carried out in this manuscript were performed on the CSC HPC cluster FUCHS of the J. W. Goethe University Frankfurt, Germany. RHSK was funded by grant SAW-2011-SGN-3 from the Leibniz Association (Germany).

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  1. Conservation Genetics Group, Senckenberg Research Institute and Natural History Museum, Clamecystraße 12, 63571, Gelnhausen, Germany

    Stefanie A. Hartmann, Katharina Steyer, Robert H. S. Kraus & Carsten Nowak

  2. Wildlife Ecology and Management, University Freiburg, Tennenbacher Straße 4, 79106, Freiburg, Germany

    Stefanie A. Hartmann & Gernot Segelbacher

  3. Biodiversity and Climate Research Center (BiK-F), Senckenberganlage 25, 60325, Frankfurt, Germany

    Carsten Nowak

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  1. Stefanie A. Hartmann
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Correspondence to Carsten Nowak.

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Hartmann, S.A., Steyer, K., Kraus, R.H.S. et al. Potential barriers to gene flow in the endangered European wildcat (Felis silvestris). Conserv Genet 14, 413–426 (2013). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10592-013-0468-9

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