Abstract

Movement is a prominent process shaping genetic population structure. In many northern mammal species, population structure is formed by geographic distance, geographical barriers and various ecological factors that influence movement over the landscape. The Arctic fox Vulpes lagopus is a highly mobile, opportunistic carnivore of the Arctic that occurs in two main ecotypes with different ecological adaptations. We assembled microsatellite data in 7 loci for 1834 Arctic foxes sampled across their entire distribution to describe the circumpolar population structure and test the impact of (1) geographic distance, (2) geographical barriers and (3) ecotype designation on the population structure. Both Structure and Geneland demonstrated distinctiveness of Iceland and Scandinavia whereas low differentiation was observed between North America-northern Greenland, Svalbard and Siberia. Genetic differentiation was significantly correlated to presence of sea ice on a global scale, but not to geographical distance or ecotype designation. However, among areas connected by sea ice, we recorded a pattern of isolation by distance. The maximum likelihood approach in Migrate suggested that connectivity across North America-northern Greenland and Svalbard was particularly high. Our results demonstrate the importance of sea ice for maintaining connectivity between Arctic fox populations and we therefore predict that climate change will increase genetic divergence among populations in the future.

Published in

Oikos
2011, Volume: 120, number: 6, pages: 873-885
Publisher: WILEY-BLACKWELL

SLU Authors

• Samelius, Gustaf

  • Department of Ecology, Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences
    

Sustainable Development Goals

Take urgent action to combat climate change and its impacts


UKÄ Subject classification

Environmental Sciences related to Agriculture and Land-use


Publication identifier

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1600-0706.2010.18766.x

Permanent link to this page (URI)

https://res.slu.se/id/publ/57195