DOI: 10.5061/dryad.cj0k2
title: Data from: Relationship type affects the reliability of dispersal distance estimated using pedigree inferences in partially sampled populations: a case study involving invasive American mink in Scotland

description: Estimating dispersal—a key parameter for population ecology and
 management—is notoriously difficult. The use of pedigree assignments,
 aided by likelihood-based software, has become popular to estimate
 dispersal rate and distance. However, the partial sampling of populations
 may produce false assignments. Further, it is unknown how the accuracy of
 assignment is affected by the genealogical relationships of individuals
 and is reflected by software-derived assignment probabilities. Inspired by
 a project managing invasive American mink (Neovison vison), we estimated
 individual dispersal distances using inferred pairwise relationships of
 culled individuals. Additionally, we simulated scenarios to investigate
 the accuracy of pairwise inferences. Estimates of dispersal distance
 varied greatly when derived from different inferred pairwise
 relationships, with mother–offspring relationship being the shortest
 (average = 21 km) and the most accurate. Pairs assigned as maternal
 half-siblings were inaccurate, with 64%–97% falsely assigned, implying
 that estimates for these relationships in the wild population were
 unreliable. The false assignment rate was unrelated to the
 software-derived assignment probabilities at high dispersal rates.
 Assignments were more accurate when the inferred parents were older and
 immigrants and when dispersal rates between subpopulations were low (1%
 and 2%). Using 30 instead of 15 loci increased pairwise reliability, but
 half-sibling assignments were still inaccurate (&gt;59% falsely
 assigned). The most reliable approach when using inferred pairwise
 relationships in polygamous species would be not to use half-sibling
 relationship types. Our simulation approach provides guidance for the
 application of pedigree inferences under partial sampling and is
 applicable to other systems where pedigree assignments are used for
 ecological inference.
description: Empirical mink
 dataEmpirical field data of
 culled American mink in NE Scotland (ID, sex, age, year of capture) and
 their genotyped 15 microsatellitesEmpirical_mink_data.txtRcode Life-history ParametersR codes for the mink life-history parameters used for the simulationsRcode_Dynamics.RGenotypes Scenario 1, Central PopulationSimulation data composed of the genotypes for the initial central population (P0) in Scenario 1S1_P0.txtGenotypes Scenario 1, Peripheral Population 1Simulation data composed of the genotypes for the initial peripheral population 1 (IP0 1) in Scenario 1S1_IP0_1.txtGenotypes Scenario 1, Peripheral Population 2Simulation data composed of the genotypes for the initial peripheral population 2 (IP0 2) in Scenario 1S1_IP0_2.txtGenotypes Scenario 2, Population DeeSimulation data composed of the genotypes for the initial Dee population (P0 Dee) in Scenario 2S2_P0_Dee.txtGenotypes Scenario 2, Population SpeySimulation data composed of the genotypes for the initial Spey population (P0 Spey) in Scenario 2S2_P0_Spey.txtGenotypes Scenario 2, Population TaySimulation data composed of the genotypes for the initial Tay population (P0 Tay) in Scenario 2S2_P0_Tay.txtGenotypes Scenario 3, Population DeeSimulation data composed of the genotypes for the initial Dee population (P0 Dee) in Scenario 3S3_P0_Dee.txtGenotypes Scenario 3, Population SpeySimulation data composed of the genotypes for the initial Spey population (P0 Spey) in Scenario 3S3_P0_Spey.txtGenotypes Scenario 3, Population TaySimulation data composed of the genotypes for the initial Tay population (P0 Tay) in Scenario 3S3_P0_Tay.txt