Many animals migrate seasonally between breeding and non-breeding territories and these annual movements can have a profound effect on population genetic structure. We genotyped 283 individuals from 11 populations at seven variable microsatellite loci and compared patterns of neutral genetic differentiation and neutral genetic diversity among migratory and resident breeding populations of the Golden-crowned Kinglet (Regulus satrapa), a widespread North American songbird. We predicted that resident populations would exhibit greater genetic differentiation and lower genetic diversity than migratory populations because migratory behaviour is thought to enhance gene flow. The magnitude of genetic differentiation and genetic diversity among migratory and resident populations was comparable, and the greatest levels of differentiation were observed for pairwise comparisons between Ontario and all western populations. Distance-based redundancy models and redundancy models revealed that patterns of neutral genetic differentiation and neutral genetic diversity follow an isolation-by-distance model and are not correlated with migratory behaviour. Overall it appears that genetic patterns are more closely associated with Pleistocene glacial history as proposed in a previous study.

The current dataset is genotype data for seven microsatellites. Included in this data are location, population information, latitude, and longitude for each sample. Missing geneotype values are listed as zero for this dataset.