The importance of combining genetic and ecological data to understand patterns of dispersal in snakes.

RIVERA PAULA C.; GARDENAL CRISTINA N.; CHIARAVIGLIO MARGARITA

Advances in Genetics Research, Volume 3

Nova Science Publishers Inc

Lugar: New York; Año: 2010; p. 129 - 146

In animal populations, gene flow is mainly mediated by the direct movement of organisms; consequently, characteristics of the species, population, individuals and/or environment may influence the magnitude of genetic exchange among populations. The validity of studies on gene flow to infer actual patterns of dispersal and connectivity among populations has been largely discussed, mostly because the estimations of the magnitude of this process are based on models including assumptions that are not generally met in nature. Besides, molecular genetic data usually average population structure over long periods of time. In this context, it is important to correlate the measures of gene flow and genetic structure with ecological data, particularly those traits that may influence dispersal ability of the species, not only to obtain more realistic conclusions but also to pose hypothesis and predictions on either the proximal causes and/or the possible adaptive significance of dispersal. Snakes show a noticeable variety of combinations of ecological features, which make them valuable models to combine these two approaches. In this review, we examine the main results of studies about levels of gene flow of several species of snakes and discuss the interpretation of such pattern in relation to ecological and environmental data. In some cases, we propose different scenarios that could better explain the genetic structure observed.