sex-biased dispersal of a frog (odorrana schmackeri) is affected by patch isolation and resource limitation in a fragmented landscape青蛙的性别偏向型扩散(odorrana schmackeri)是影响补丁隔离和资源限制在一个支离破碎的景观.pdfVIP

Sex-Biased Dispersal of a Frog (Odorrana schmackeri) Is Affected by Patch Isolation and Resource Limitation in a Fragmented Landscape 1 2 1 Yu Wang , Amanda Lane , Ping Ding * 1The Key Laboratory of Conservation Biology for Endangered Wildlife of the Ministry of Education, College of Life Sciences, Zhejiang University, Hangzhou, China, 2 Faculty of Veterinary Science, University of Sydney, Sydney, New South Wales, Australia Abstract Sex-biased dispersal is widespread in the animal kingdom and is affected by numerous factors including mating system, social factors and environmental conditions. Unlike birds and mammals, there is no common trend in amphibians and explaining the direction and degree of sex-biased dispersal in species-specific cases is difficult. We conducted a study on dispersal of the Chinese piebald odorous frog (Odorrana schmackeri) in a fragmented landscape associated with dam construction. Ten microsatellite loci were used to analyze 382 samples sourced from 14 fragmented ‘islands’. Assignment tests indicated a significant pattern of female-biased dispersal on one island with inconsistencies in the strength and direction of this pattern between nearby islands. The effects of four island attributes and two potential impact factors on the pattern of sex-biased dispersal were examined. We found that the extent of isolation from the mainland and the number of breeding sites both showed a negative correlation with female biased dispersal, such that the closer an island is to the mainland the more likely it is to display female biased dispersal, and the more breeding sites on an island the more male immigrants. Based on these results, we conclude that geographic isolation and limited breeding resources are the most likely explan