Cities are home to a continuum of species that range from specially adapted to exploit these urban habitats, to others just passing through as transient dispersers. Urbanization can have a profound impact on the movement and gene flow of many of these species. Compared to rural landscapes, urban environments are complex matrices of roads, buildings, bare soil, slopes, green space, and subterranean infrastructure. Urban neighborhoods also vary greatly in their socioeconomic and cultural characteristics. This heterogeneity can lead to complex movement patterns in wildlife that are difficult or impossible to characterize using direct tracking methods. Genetic data provide a powerful approach to evaluate this movement and gene flow. These genetic data also elucidate spatial patterns of genetic variation, population genomics, and signatures of adaptive evolution across the genome. When combined with landscape, environmental, and socioeconomic data, genetic approaches may also identify which features of urban habitats impede or facilitate gene flow. These landscape genetic approaches, when paired with high-resolution sampling and replicated studies across multiple cities, can identify dynamic processes that underpin wildlife movement in cities.
Results/Conclusions
This talk reviews the use of spatially-explicit genetic approaches in understanding urban wildlife movement, and highlights the many insights gained from rodents as models for urban landscape genetics. Results that will be discussed include the use of population genomics and landscape genetics to understand gene flow and adaptation in native white-footed mice in the NYC metropolitan area, as well as comparative studies of brown rat populations sampled from multiple cities.