Adaptive Genetic Variation on the Landscape: Methods and Cases

Abstract

There is a growing interest in identifying ecological factors that influence adaptive genetic diversity patterns in both model and nonmodel species. The emergence of large genomic and environmental data sets, as well as the increasing sophistication of population genetics methods, provides an opportunity to characterize these patterns in relation to the environment. Landscape genetics has emerged as a flexible analytical framework that connects patterns of adaptive genetic variation to environmental heterogeneity in a spatially explicit context. Recent growth in this field has led to the development of numerous spatial statistical methods, prompting a discussion of the current benefits and limitations of these approaches. Here we provide a review of the design of landscape genetics studies, the different statistical tools, some important case studies, and perspectives on how future advances in this field are likely to shed light on important processes in evolution and ecology.