Do all roads lead to resistance? State road density is the main impediment to gene flow in a flagship species inhabiting a severely fragmented anthropogenic landscape

Abstract

Abstract Aim Connectivity conservation is ideally based on empirical information on how landscape heterogeneity influences species‐specific movement and gene flow. Here, we present the first large‐scale evaluation of landscape impacts on genetic connectivity in the European wildcat (Felis silvestris), a flagship and umbrella species for connectivity conservation across Europe. Location The study was carried out in the core area of the distributional range of wildcats in Germany, covering about 186,000 km2 of a densely populated and highly fragmented landscape. Methods We used data of 975 wildcats genotyped at 14 microsatellites and an individual‐based landscape genetic framework to assess the importance of twelve landscape variables for explaining observed genetic connectivity. For this, we optimized landscape resistance surfaces for all variables and compared their relative impacts using multiple regression on distance matrices and commonality analysis. Results Genetic connectivity was best explained by a synergistic combination of six landscape variables and isolation by distance. Of these variables, road density had by far the strongest individual impact followed by synergistic effects of agricultural lands and settlements. Subsequent analyses involving different road types revealed that the strong effect of road density was largely due to state roads, while highways and federal roads had a much smaller, and county roads only a negligible impact. Main conclusions Our results highlight that landscape‐wide genetic connectivity in wildcats across Germany is strongly shaped by the density of roads and in particular state roads, with higher densities providing larger resistance to successful dispersal. These findings have important implications for conservation planning, as measures to mitigate fragmentation effects of roads (e.g., over‐ or underpasses) often focus on large, federally managed transportation infrastructures. While these major roads exert local barrier effects, other road types can be more influential on overall connectivity, as they are more abundant and more widespread across the landscape.

Keywords

• barrier
• circuit theory
• commonality analysis
• connectivity
• European wildcat
• fragmentation