PT  - JOURNAL ARTICLE
AU  - Jason Munshi-South
AU  - Christine P. Zolnik
AU  - Stephen E. Harris
TI  - Population genomics of the Anthropocene: urbanization reduces the evolutionary potential of small mammal populations
AID  - 10.1101/025007
DP  - 2015 Jan 01
TA  - bioRxiv
PG  - 025007
4099  - http://biorxiv.org/content/early/2015/08/20/025007.short
4100  - http://biorxiv.org/content/early/2015/08/20/025007.full
AB  - Urbanization results in pervasive habitat fragmentation and reduces standing genetic variation through genetic drift. Loss of genome-wide variation may ultimately reduce the evolutionary potential of animal populations experiencing rapidly changing conditions. In this study, we examined genome-wide variation among 23 white-footed mouse (Peromyscus leucopus) populations sampled along an urbanization gradient in the New York City metropolitan area. Genome-wide variation was estimated as a proxy for evolutionary potential using more than 10,000 SNP markers generated by ddRAD-Seq. We found that genome-wide variation is inversely related to urbanization as measured by percent impervious surface cover, and to a lesser extent, human population density. We also report that urbanization results in enhanced genome-wide differentiation between populations in cities. There was no pattern of isolation by distance among these populations, but an isolation by resistance model based on impervious surface significantly explained patterns of genetic differentiation. Isolation by environment modeling also indicated that urban populations deviate much more strongly from global allele frequencies than suburban or rural populations. This study is the first to examine evolutionary potential along an urban-to-rural gradient and quantify urbanization as a driver of population genomics patterns.