ISOLATION BY RESISTANCE

Despite growing interest in the effects of landscape heterogeneity on genetic structuring, few tools are available to incorporate data on landscape composition into population genetic studies. Analyses of isolation by distance have typically either assumed spatial homogeneity for convenience or applied theoretically unjustified distance metrics to compensate for heterogeneity. Here I propose the isolation-by-resistance (IBR) model as an alternative for predicting equilibrium genetic structuring in complex landscapes. The model predicts a positive relationship between genetic differentiation and the resistance distance, a distance metric that exploits precise relationships between random walk times and…

• UE
  U.S. Environmental Protection Agency