Demographic and genetic approaches to study dispersal in wild animal populations: A methodological review

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Abstract

Dispersal is a central process in ecology and evolution. At the individual level, the three stages of the dispersal process (i.e., emigration, transience and immigration) are affected by complex interactions between phenotypes and environmental factors. Condition- and context-dependent dispersal have far-reaching consequences, both for the demography and the genetic structuring of natural populations and for adaptive processes. From an applied point of view, dispersal also deeply affects the spatial dynamics of populations and their ability to respond to land-use changes, habitat degradation and climate change. For these reasons, dispersal has received considerable attention from ecologists and evolutionary biologists. Demographic and genetic methods allow quantifying non-effective (i.e., followed or not by a successful reproduction) and effective (i.e., with a successful reproduction) dispersal and to investigate how individual and environmental factors affect the different stages of the dispersal process. Over the past decade, demographic and genetic methods designed to quantify dispersal have rapidly evolved but interactions between researchers from the two fields are limited. We here review recent developments in both demographic and genetic methods to study dispersal in wild animal populations. We present their strengths and limits, as well as their applicability depending on study objectives and population characteristics. We propose a unified framework allowing researchers to combine methods and select the more suitable tools to address a broad range of important topics about the ecology and evolution of dispersal and its consequences on animal population dynamics and genetics.

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