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Accounting for sex-specific differences in gene flow and functional connectivity for cougars and implications for management

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Abstract

Context

Maintenance of connectivity is a commonly recommended strategy for species management and conservation as habitat loss and fragmentation continues. Therefore, functional connectivity modeling is needed for species over large geographic areas. However, sex-specific functional connectivity is rarely considered, even though the results of such an analysis have the potential to influence applied management practices.

Objectives

We use a large (n = 1902) genetic dataset to identify population level and sex-specific functional connectivity for cougars in Washington, USA.

Methods

We conducted a landscape genetics analysis that pseudo-optimized resistance surfaces for the full sample of cougars as well as for male and female groups. We then modeled connectivity across the top performing resistance surfaces with resistant kernels.

Results

The top resistance surface for females had higher resistance and lower connectivity than the males and had more spatial variability. However, we also observed greater resistance to movement and a lack of connectivity for males in and around the Olympic Peninsula. The resistance surface and connectivity models for all cougars contained both the broad features of the male models and the more heterogeneous features of the female models, indicating the importance of both local and regional dispersal and breeding.

Conclusions

In species with sex-specific differences in movement and dispersal, accounting for these differences can be important for understanding functional connectivity. For cougars in Washington, this revealed depressed connectivity for males on the Olympic Peninsula which may indicate a more immediate management concern for the future of this population than previously thought.

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Acknowledgements

We wish to thank the biologists and officers from Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife (WDFW) for diligently collecting samples from all known cougar mortalities for use in this project. Also, thanks to Cathy Lacey and Brian Harris with British Columbia Ministry of Forests, Lands and Natural Resource Operations and compulsory inspectors for assistance collecting samples in BC. We thank the following hound handlers for volunteering their time and expertise on WDFW cougar research projects: R. Eich, B. Heath, K. Lester, D Likens, T. MacArthur, K. Reber, S. Reynaud, C. Sanchez, B. Smith, C. Smith, M. Thorniley, B. Thorniley, and B. Trudell and M. White. We also thank Stephanie Simek and Brian Kertson for an early review of this manuscript. This research was supported in part by the USDA Forest Service, Rocky Mountain Research Station, Aldo Leopold Wilderness Research Institute. The findings and conclusions presented here are those of the authors and should not be construed to represent any official USDA or U.S. Government determination or policy.

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This research was not supported by any external funds.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Aldo Leopold Wilderness Research Institute, Rocky Mountain Research Station, US Forest Service, Missoula, MT, USA

    Katherine A. Zeller

  2. Bioinformatics and Computational Genomics Laboratory, Hunter College, City University of New York, New York, NY, 10021, USA

    Claudia Wultsch

  3. Sackler Institute for Comparative Genomics, American Museum of Natural History, New York, NY, 10024, USA

    Claudia Wultsch

  4. Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife, 3515 State Highway 97A, Wenatchee, WA, 98801, USA

    Lindsay S. Welfelt & Richard A. Beausoleil

  5. Computational Ecology Lab, School of Public and Community Health Sciences, University of Montana, Missoula, MT, 59812, USA

    Erin L. Landguth

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  1. Katherine A. Zeller
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Contributions

K.Z. conceptualized and implemented the research approach, with consultation and input from C.W., L.W., R.B., and E.L. K.Z. wrote the initial manuscript with lots of contributions to the text by C.W., L.W., and R.B. All authors reviewed and edited the final manuscript drafts.

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Correspondence to Katherine A. Zeller.

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Zeller, K.A., Wultsch, C., Welfelt, L.S. et al. Accounting for sex-specific differences in gene flow and functional connectivity for cougars and implications for management. Landsc Ecol 38, 223–237 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10980-022-01556-z

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