ArticleEcology and evolution2021
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.
Article in Ecology and evolution, 2021. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 7 papers.
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Who cites it
7 citing papers in PubMed.
- Evidence for High Levels of Gene Flow in Hedgehogs (Ecology and evolution · 2025Article
- Article
- Assessing the connectivity value of roadway structures for terrestrial mammals across the Northern Appalachian forest of Vermont.PloS one · 2025Article
- Assessing Global Efforts in the Selection of Vertebrates as Umbrella Species for Conservation.Biology · 2023Article
- Human impact on the recent population history of the elusive European wildcat inferred from whole genome data.BMC genomics · 2022Article
- Forecasting effects of transport infrastructure on endangered tigers: a tool for conservation planning.PeerJ · 2022Article
- 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.Ecology and evolution · 2021Article
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Authors and funding
6 authors.
Funding
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Abstract
aimConnectivity 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 ( LOCATION: The study was carried out in the core area of the distributional range of wildcats in Germany, covering about 186,000 km
methodsWe 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.
resultsGenetic 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
conclusionsOur 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.
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