Journal
CURRENT BIOLOGY
Volume 18, Issue 22, Pages 1809-1814Publisher
CELL PRESS
DOI: 10.1016/j.cub.2008.10.031
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Funding
- Uganda Wildlife Authority
- Uganda National Council for Science and Technology
- Institute of Tropical Forest Conservation (ITFC)
- USAID PRIME West Project
- Wildlife Conservation Society
- International Gorilla Conservation Programme
- MacArthur Foundation
- World Wide Fund for Nature
- Office Rwandais de Tourism et Parc Nationaux
- Institut Congolais pour to Conservation do la Nature
- Berggorilla und Regenwald Direkthilfe
- Karisake Research Centre
- Leakey Foundation
- United States Fish & Wildlife Service Great Ape Fund
- National Geographic Society
- Max Planck Society
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Dispersal, one of the key life-history features of a species, influences gene flow and, consequently, the genetic structuring of populations. Landscape characteristics such as rivers, mountains, or habitat fragmentation affect dispersal and result in broad-scale genetic structuring of various mammalian species [1-5]. However, less attention has been paid to studying how dispersal is influenced by finer-scale microgeographic variation in a continuous habitat. Here we investigate the genetic structure of a closed population of similar to 300 endangered mountain gorillas living in multiple groups in a small (331 km(2)) forest in southwestern Uganda. In a species in which both sexes routinely disperse, population genetic structure in females was influenced by distance, altitude, and plant community composition, whereas males were not geographically structured. The effect of distance fits the observed tendency of females to transfer to neighboring groups, whereas the effects of altitude and vegetation reflect the changing species composition of locally available food resources. These results suggest that individual dietary preferences are important even in a highly mobile species living amid abundant food, and we propose that preference for natal habitats will influence dispersal decisions in many other vertebrate taxa.
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