Elevational range impacts connectivity and predicted deme sizes from
models of habitat suitability
Abstract
The predictive link between the spatial demographic changes of a species
and its environment is complex and difficult to detect without detailed
models and data from multiple sources. Integrative distributional,
demographic, and coalescent modeling (iDDC) integrates simulation-based
spatial population genetic and species distribution models (SDMs) to
enable testing eco-evolutionary hypotheses given geo-referenced genetic
data. Integral to iDDC is the transformation between habitat suitability
values and local deme sizes, a key parameter that has not been
thoroughly explored or used to test eco-evolutionary hypotheses. In this
study, we investigate this parameter’s influence on spatiotemporal
demographic inference in two Enyalius lizard species in the
Brazilian Atlantic Forest, one with a high-elevation distribution,
Enyalius iheringii, and another having a low-elevation
distribution, Enyalius catenatus. Since environmental tolerances
in high-elevation species are generally broader than in low-elevation
species, we test two hypotheses: (1) E. iheringii has higher
effective migration compared to E. catenatus; and (2) the
relationship between habitat suitability and local deme size is
non-linear for E. iheringii and linear for E. catenatus. We find
support for (1) and mixed support for (2), where we find strong model
support for a non-linear transformation for E. iheringii but also
find support (although weak) for a non-linear transformation for
E. catenatus. We also generate landscape-wide maps of predicted
genetic diversity for both target species. We find that genetic
diversity predictions for the E. iheringii correspond with
predicted patterns of range stability, while predictions for E.
catenatus are distinct from predictions of range-wide stability.