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Characterizing Patterns Of Genomic Variation In The Threatened Utah Prairie Dog: Implications For Conservation And Management, Rachael M. Giglio, Tonie E. Rocke, Jorge E. Osorio, Emily Latch

Biological Sciences Faculty Articles

Utah prairie dogs (Cynomys parvidens) are federally threatened due to eradication campaigns, habitat destruction, and outbreaks of plague. Today, Utah prairie dogs exist in small, isolated populations, making them less demographically stable and more susceptible to erosion of genetic variation by genetic drift. We characterized patterns of genetic structure at neutral and putatively adaptive loci in order to evaluate the relative effects of genetic drift and local adaptation on population divergence. We sampled individuals across the Utah prairie dog species range and generated 2,955 single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) using double digest restriction site associated DNA sequencing (ddRAD). Genetic …