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Landscape genetics highlight the importance of sustainable management in European mountain spruce forests: a case study on Western capercaillie

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Abstract

The mountain spruce forests of the Western Carpathians have experienced a dramatic deterioration in the last decades increasing the landscape fragmentation. This considerably affected the Western capercaillie population recently surviving within small habitat patches surrounded by unfavourable habitats. Our study shows that the long-term isolation resulted in genetic differentiation with decreasing trend in allelic richness towards the most adjacent western subpopulations. We evaluated dispersal possibilities within the landscape and identified barriers and the most critical corridors between genetically distinct subpopulations. Landscape genetic analysis confirmed that the isolation by environmental features explains the observed genetic patterns better than straight geographical distance. We highlight the urgent need for an active conservation management in the critical habitats where dispersion might be constrained or “bottlenecked” in order to ensure gene flow within the fragmented capercaillie metapopulation of the Western Carpathian mountain forests.

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Acknowledgements

The authors wish to express thanks to numerous colleagues from the State Nature Conservancy of the Slovak Republic, the State Forest Enterprises of the Slovak Republic and NGO “OZ Prales” who assisted us with sampling. We would like to mention namely M. Apfelová, Z. Kaliská, J. Tesák, P. Chválik, M. Hejnýš, Ľ. Pitoňák, M. Kormančík, M. Lehocký, P. Lenko, M. Mikoláš and I. Kalafusová. We are grateful to G. Baloghová and V. Slivková for the assistance in DNA extractions. Thanks are also due to E. M. Ritch-Krč for improving the English. We are grateful to anonymous reviewer and guest editor’s comments that improved the manuscript. This work was financially supported by the project VEGA 1/0303/12 “Genetic differentiation of fragmented populations of capercaillie (Tetrao urogallus) and black grouse (Tetrao tetrix) in Western Carpathians” and the project under the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF)—Environment Operational Program of the EU, ITMS 24150120027 The improvement of the protection status of capercaillie and black grouse.

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  1. Faculty of Forestry, Technical University, T.G. Masaryka 24, 96053, Zvolen, Slovakia

    Peter Klinga, Peter Smolko, Diana Krajmerová & Ladislav Paule

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  1. Peter Klinga
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  2. Peter Smolko
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  3. Diana Krajmerová
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Correspondence to Peter Klinga.

Additional information

Communicated by Manfred J. Lexer.

This article originates from the conference “Mountain Forest Management in a Changing World”, held 7–9 July 2015 in Smokovec, High Tatra Mountains, Slovakia.

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Klinga, P., Smolko, P., Krajmerová, D. et al. Landscape genetics highlight the importance of sustainable management in European mountain spruce forests: a case study on Western capercaillie. Eur J Forest Res 136, 1041–1050 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10342-017-1034-7

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