2.8 Population genetic indicators for conservation
recommendations
Following the framework proposed by Ottewell et al. (2016) for
conservation planning, we calculated three population genetic
indicators: genetic differentiation (F ST),
genetic diversity (observed and expected heterozygosity,H O and H E) and inbreeding
coefficient (F IS). To identify conservation
management units and set conservation priorities, we analyzed the
population genetic structure as outlined by Fraser & Bernatchez (2001)
using two primary approaches: (1) Principal Coordinate Analysis (PCoA):
We generated genetic distance-based PCoA plots in GeneAlEx (Peakall &
Smouse, 2012) to visualize genetic relationships among populations; (2)
Clustering Analysis: We inferred the optimal number of genetic clusters
(K ) in STRUCTURE (Pritchard et al. , 2000) using 10,000
burnin and 100,000 MCMC generations, with ten replicates per K value, testing up to K equal to the number of populations plus
two. The most likely K was determined following Evanno et
al. (2005) approach as implemented in Structure Harvester (Earl &
vonHoldt, 2012), and the results were visualized with StructuRly
(Criscuolo & Angelini, 2020). File format conversions between software
were conducted in PGDSpider (Lischer & Excoffier, 2012).