Latent Spatial Models for Landscape Genetics

• Activity Number: 525
• Type: Topic Contributed
• Date/Time: Wednesday, August 7, 2013 : 10:30 AM to 12:20 PM
• Sponsor: Section on Statistics and the Environment
• Author(s): Ephraim Hanks*+ and Mevin B. Hooten
• Companies: Colorado State University and U. S. Geological Survey, Colorado Cooperative Fish and Wildlife Research Unit
• Keywords: Landscape Genetics ; Optimal Sampling ; Spatial Statistics

Abstract

The study of how landscape features influence gene flow is known as landscape genetics. While the questions posed by landscape genetics are inherently spatial in nature, this relatively young field has developed nearly independent of the field of spatial statistics. We review the field of landscape genetics and show how the assumptions contained in the most common approaches to estimating landscape effects on gene flow can be expressed as spatial covariance functions. We then use a multinomial model with latent spatial structure to examine spatial gene flow in greater sage-grouse (Centrocercus urophasiamus) in the western United States.