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Population genetic structure and landscape connectivity of the Eastern Yellowbelly Racer (Coluber constrictor flaviventris) in the contiguous tallgrass prairie of northeastern Kansas, USA

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Abstract

The tallgrass prairie of North America has undergone widespread habitat loss and fragmentation (<4% remains). The Flint Hills region of Kansas and Oklahoma is the largest tallgrass prairie remaining and therefore provides an opportunity to study the population genetic structure of grassland species in a relatively contiguous landscape and set a baseline for evaluating changes when the habitat is fragmented. We adopted a landscape genetics approach to identify how landscape structure affected dispersal, population genetic structure, and landscape connectivity of the Eastern Yellowbelly Racer (Coluber constrictor flaviventris) across a 13,500-km2 landscape in northeastern Kansas, USA. The racer population had high allelic diversity, high heterozygosity, and was maintaining migration-drift equilibrium. Autocorrelation between genetic and geographic distance revealed that racers exhibited restricted dispersal within 3 km, and isolation-by-distance. Significant isolation-by-distance occurred at broad regional scales (>100 km), but because of sufficient gene flow between locations, we were unable to define discrete subpopulations using Bayesian clustering analyses. Resistance distance, which considers the permeability of habitats, did not explain significant variation in genetic distance beyond Euclidean distance alone, suggesting that racers are not currently influenced by landscape composition. In northeastern Kansas, racers appear to be an abundant and continuously distributed snake that perceives the landscape as well connected with no cover type currently impeding snake dispersal or gene flow.

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Acknowledgments

We thank numerous individuals, especially George Pisani of the Kansas Biological Survey and Curtis Schmidt of the Sternberg Museum of Natural History and, for tissue samples. Funding was provided by KPBS-LTER Program-NSF, Alan Kamb Grant for Research on Kansas Snakes, Busch Gardens and Seaworld Conservation Fund, Frances Peacock Scholarship for Native Bird Habitat-Garden Club of America, Sigma Xi Grants-in-aid of Research, and Kansas State University through University Small Research Grants, Biology Research & Instruction Enhancement Fund, Institute of Grassland Studies, and Ecological Genomics Institute. Animal protocols were carried out under permits from Kansas Department of Wildlife and Parks (SC-099-2007, SC-078-2008) and Kansas State University IACUC #2463.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Division of Biology, Kansas State University, 116 Ackert Hall, Manhattan, KS, 66506-4901, USA

    Page E. Klug, Samantha M. Wisely & Kimberly A. With

  2. Department of Biological Sciences and Environmental Research Center, University of Notre Dame, 089 Galvin Life Sciences, Notre Dame, IN, 46556-0369, USA

    Page E. Klug

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  1. Page E. Klug
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Correspondence to Page E. Klug.

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Klug, P.E., Wisely, S.M. & With, K.A. Population genetic structure and landscape connectivity of the Eastern Yellowbelly Racer (Coluber constrictor flaviventris) in the contiguous tallgrass prairie of northeastern Kansas, USA. Landscape Ecol 26, 281–294 (2011). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10980-010-9554-2

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