Female philopatry and unsuccessful male dispersal of a top predator in a human-modified landscape revealed by relatedness analysis

• Published in: European journal of wildlife research 2023-10, Vol.69 (5), p.95-95, Article 95
• Main Authors: de Oliveira, Marina E., Saranholi, Bruno H., Miotto, Renata A., Souza, Andiara Silos M. C., Dirzo, Rodolfo, Galetti Jr, Pedro M.
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Autocorrelation; Biomedical and Life Sciences; Brazil; Clustering; Dispersal; Dispersion; Ecology; Females; Fish & Wildlife Biology & Management; Forests; Fragments; genotyping; habitat destruction; Habitat fragmentation; Habitat loss; habitats; landscapes; Life Sciences; Males; Philopatry; Predation; Puma concolor; road kills; Roads; Sex ratio; Spatial analysis; species; Zoology
• ISSN: 1612-4642; 1439-0574
• DOI: 10.1007/s10344-023-01726-7

Habitat loss and fragmentation threaten population persistence because they affect the ability of individuals to disperse between remaining patches of good-quality habitat and reduce refuge areas for populations. In cougars ( Puma concolor ), males are predominantly dispersers while females tend to be more philopatric. To examine the dispersal ability and philopatry of cougars in a human-dominated landscape in Brazil, we performed relatedness and spatial autocorrelation analyses based on genotyped cougars from different sampling groups: forest fragments within a human-modified matrix, continuous forest, and road-killed individuals. We found similarly high relatedness and a positive spatial autocorrelation at the shortest spatial scale (0–100 km) for both males and females from the forest fragments within a human-modified matrix. In the continuous forest and among cougars sampled as roadkills, we detected no spatial autocorrelation and observed low relatedness for both sexes. We also detected higher male:female sex ratio among road-killed individuals, likely due to the greater dispersal tendency of males. Our results confirm female philopatry in the forest fragments. However, the high relatedness and positive autocorrelation observed in the forest fragments suggest kin clustering also for males, which may be a result of unsuccessful dispersal. We reported the first evidence for a South American cougar population of unsuccessful dispersal in response to human-altered landscapes. Further research is needed to assess the specific causes of male unsuccessful dispersal and how it may affect species persistence in human-dominated landscapes.