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Data from: Functional connectivity in replicated urban landscapes in the land snail (Cornu aspersum)

Cite this dataset

Balbi, Manon et al. (2018). Data from: Functional connectivity in replicated urban landscapes in the land snail (Cornu aspersum) [Dataset]. Dryad. https://doi.org/10.5061/dryad.p9f13

Abstract

Urban areas are highly fragmented and thereby exert strong constraints on individual dispersal. Despite this, some species manage to persist in urban areas, such as the garden snail, Cornu aspersum, which is common in cityscapes despite its low mobility. Using landscape genetic approaches, we combined study area replication and multi-scale analysis to determine how landscape composition, configuration, and connectivity influence snail dispersal across urban areas. At the overall landscape scale, areas with a high percentage of roads decreased genetic differentiation between populations. At the population scale, genetic differentiation was positively linked with building surface, the proportion of borders where wooded patches and roads appeared side-by-side and the proportion of borders combining wooded patches and other impervious areas. Analyses based on pairwise genetic distances validated the isolation-by-distance and isolation-by-resistance models for this land snail, with an equal fit to least-cost paths and circuit-theory-based models. Each of the 12 landscapes analyzed separately yielded specific relations to environmental features, whereas analyses integrating all replicates highlighted general common effects. Our results suggest that urban transport infrastructures facilitate passive snail dispersal. At a local scale, corresponding to active dispersal, unfavorable habitats (wooded and impervious areas) isolate populations. This work upholds the use of replicated landscapes to increase the generalizability of landscape genetics results, and shows how multi-scale analyses provide insight to scale-dependent processes.

Usage notes

Location

France