Modelling the dispersal of the two main hosts of the raccoon rabies variant in heterogeneous environments with landscape genetics

Predicting the geographic spread of wildlife epidemics requires knowledge about the movement patterns of disease hosts or vectors. The field of landscape genetics provides valuable approaches to study dispersal indirectly, which in turn may be used to understand patterns of disease spread. Here, we applied landscape genetic analyses and spatially explicit models to identify the potential path of raccoon rabies spread in a mesocarnivore community. We used relatedness estimates derived from microsatellite genotypes of raccoons and striped skunks to investigate their dispersal patterns in a heterogeneous landscape composed predominantly of agricultural, forested and residential areas. Samples were collected in an area covering 22 000 km2 in southern Québec, where the raccoon rabies variant (RRV) was first detected in 2006. Multiple regressions on distance matrices revealed that genetic distance among male raccoons was strictly a function of geographic distance, while dispersal in female ra...预测野生动物流行病的地理传播范围，需先掌握疾病宿主或媒介生物的移动模式。景观遗传学（landscape genetics）领域为间接解析物种扩散过程提供了关键方法，此类研究亦可用于阐明疾病的传播规律。本研究采用景观遗传学分析与空间显式模型（spatially explicit models），旨在识别中型食肉动物群落中浣熊狂犬病的潜在传播路径。本研究基于浣熊与条纹臭鼬的微卫星基因型（microsatellite genotypes）推导得到的亲缘关系估计值，探究了二者在以农业、森林与居住用地为主的异质景观中的扩散模式。研究样本采集自魁北克南部一片面积达22000平方千米的区域，该区域于2006年首次发现浣熊狂犬病变异株（raccoon rabies variant, RRV）。距离矩阵多元回归分析结果显示，雄性浣熊间的遗传距离严格由地理距离决定，而雌性浣熊的扩散则……