Furthermore, they exhibit greater sensitivity to extirpation, which may inform of the general trend at the species level.
Populations show important local adaptive variations that are essential for species adaptation to changing environments. The conservation of units below the species level, commonly populations, is widely used in wildlife management, as it provides critical information to support species survival and evidence of within-species differences.
As such, BRIDES offers an interesting complement to node-based metrics and node removal to better understand the global processes at play when addressing population prioritization frameworks.
We show that population graphs can reveal complex gene flow dynamics and population resiliency to local extinction. To our knowledge, this study is the first to apply graph theory for turtle conservation genetics. Contrary to centrality measures focusing on static networks, BRIDES allowed for the analysis of evolving networks. Results showed repeated selection of certain wood turtle populations, which could have not been predicted following only genetic diversity and distinctiveness estimation, node-based metrics and node removal analysis. Our results demonstrate the robustness of the BRIDES selection process for a given scenario, while inconsistencies were observed among node-based metrics. We constructed six population subgraphs and used a stepwise selection algorithm to choose the optimal number of additional nodes, representing different populations, required to maximize network connectivity under different weighting schemes. The main objectives of this study were to (1) introduce a BRIDES selection process to assist conservation biologists in the prioritization of populations, and (2) use different centrality indices and node removal statistics to compare BRIDES results and assess gene flow among wood turtle populations.
BRIDES characterizes different types of shortest paths among the nodes of a subgraph and compares the shortest paths among the same nodes in a complete network. Using a wood turtle ( Glyptemys insculpta) population graph, we introduce BRIDES as a new tool to evaluate populations for conservation purpose without focusing solely on individual nodes. 5163, 482-491, 2008.Genetic diversity within and among populations is frequently used in prioritization processes to rank populations based on their vulnerability or distinctiveness, however, connectivity and gene flow are rarely considered within these frameworks.
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