Genomic differentiation of Northern Goshawks in coastal British Columbia ...

• Main Author: Askelson, Kenneth K.
• Format: Text
• Language: English
• Published: University of British Columbia 2019
• Subjects: Accipiter gentilis; Northern Goshawk
• Online Access: https://dx.doi.org/10.14288/1.0369723; https://doi.library.ubc.ca/10.14288/1.0369723

Understanding the process by which populations become genetically differentiated from one another has been a central goal of population genetics since its inception. With the loss of biodiversity across the globe, we lose information regarding how populations of organisms separate and become genetically distinct. An organism that exemplifies this issue is a subspecies of the Northern Goshawk (Accipiter gentilis laingi; hereafter simple “laingi”) which is classified as Threatened in coastal British Columbia under the Species at Risk Act (Canada) and the Endangered Species Act (USA). Using genotyping-by-sequencing (GBS) data across thousands of SNPs (single nucleotide polymorphisms), we investigate the genetic differentiation of this subspecies and infer the processes governing its distinctiveness. We find that Northern Goshawks on the archipelago of Haida Gwaii are distinct from other populations, clearly separating in principal component analyses, and have a wider distribution of FST and DXY when compared to ...