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COMPARATIVE ANALYSES OF EFFECTIVE POPULATION SIZE WITHIN AND AMONG SPECIES: RANID FROGS AS A CASE STUDY
Author(s) -
Phillipsen Ivan C.,
Funk W. Chris,
Hoffman Eric A.,
Monsen Kirsten J.,
Blouin Michael S.
Publication year - 2011
Publication title -
evolution
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.84
H-Index - 199
eISSN - 1558-5646
pISSN - 0014-3820
DOI - 10.1111/j.1558-5646.2011.01356.x
Subject(s) - biology , population size , population , ecology , zoology , evolutionary biology , demography , sociology
It has recently become practicable to estimate the effective sizes ( N e ) of multiple populations within species. Such efforts are valuable for estimating N e in evolutionary modeling and conservation planning. We used microsatellite loci to estimate N e of 90 populations of four ranid frog species (20–26 populations per species, mean n per population = 29). Our objectives were to determine typical values of N e for populations of each species, compare N e estimates among the species, and test for correlations between several geographic variables and N e within species. We used single‐sample linkage disequilibrium (LD), approximate Bayesian computation (ABC), and sibship assignment (SA) methods to estimate contemporary N e for each population. Three of the species— Rana pretiosa , R. luteiventris , and R. cascadae — have consistently small effective population sizes (<50). N e in Lithobates pipiens spans a wider range, with some values in the hundreds or thousands. There is a strong east‐to‐west trend of decreasing N e in L. pipiens . The smaller effective sizes of western populations of this species may be related to habitat fragmentation and population bottlenecking.