DOI: 10.5061/dryad.9pb01
title: Data from: Comparative landscape genetics of two river frog species occurring at different elevations on Mount Kilimanjaro

description: Estimating population connectivity and species’ abilities to disperse
 across the landscape is crucial for understanding the long-term
 persistence of species in changing environments. Surprisingly, few
 landscape genetics studies focused on tropical regions despite the
 alarming extinction rates within these ecosystems. Here, we compared the
 influence of landscape features on the distribution of genetic variation
 of an Afromontane frog, Amietia wittei, with that of its more broadly
 distributed lowland congener, A. angolensis, on Mt. Kilimanjaro, Tanzania.
 We predicted high gene flow in the montane species with movements enhanced
 through terrestrial habitats of the continuous rainforest. In contrast,
 dispersal might be restricted to aquatic corridors and reduced by
 anthropogenic disturbance in the lowland species. We found high gene flow
 in A. wittei relative to other montane amphibians. Nonetheless, gene flow
 was lower than in the lowland species which showed little population
 structure. Least-cost path analysis suggested that dispersal is
 facilitated by stream networks in both species, but different landscape
 features were identified to influence connectivity among populations.
 Contrary to a previous study, gene flow in the lowland species was
 negatively correlated with the presence of human settlements. Also,
 genetic subdivision in A. wittei did not coincide with specific physical
 barriers as in other landscape genetics studies, suggesting that factors
 other than topography may contribute to population divergence. Overall
 these results highlight the importance of a comparative landscape genetics
 approach for assessing the influence of the landscape matrix on population
 connectivity, particularly because non-intuitive results can alter the
 course of conservation and management.
description: AFLP
 datasetAmietia wittei and
 Amietia angolensis tissue samples were collected from sites on the
 southern slope of Mount Kilimanjaro, Tanzania, in 2011. Total genomic DNA
 was extracted with the Roche High Pure PCR Template Preparation Kit
 according to the manufacturer's protocol, except for an extra step
 after the digestion by proteinase K aiming to discard residual pigments.
 DNA was digested and fragments were amplified using six primer pair
 combinations using a modified version of Vos et al. (1995) (Appendix S1,
 Supporting Information). AFLP fragments were separated in an ABI 3130XL
 automatic capillary sequencer (Applied Biosystems) with an internal
 GeneScan 500 ROX size standard at the Department of Human Genetics,
 Biozentrum, University of Würzburg. AFLP peaks were determined using
 GeneMapper 4.1 (Applied Biosystems) and the final binary matrices were
 obtained following thw semi-automated scoring procedure described in
 Whitlock et al. (2008). The data include presence (1), absence (0),
 unscored (-1) AFLP fragments (in column) for each study site (rows) for
 Amietia wittei and Amietia angolensis separately.DRYAD_AFLP_dataset.xlsxLCP distance dataLandscape distances and variables included in each least-cost path (LCP) between study sites of Amietia wittei and Amietia angolensis calculated in ArcGIS 10 (ESRI). For each LCP model between pairs of sites (rows) the following variables (columns) were calculated: topography-corrected route lengths (distance); weighted-average values of compound topographic index (cti), roughness (rough) and slope; proportions of cropland, homegarden, human settlements, erica shrubs, forest, disturbed forest, reforestation and grassland. A 30 x 30 m digital elevation model (DEM) produced by J.A. Ong'injo, C. Lambrechts and A. Help was use for calculating resistance surfaces. Stream network was delineated using the "flow accumulation" tool in ArcGIS 10 (ESRI). The land cover surface was modified from the original produced by T. Appelhans and T. Nauss (unpubl.). Straight-line distances (Euclidean) are also reported and used as null models.DRYAD_LCP_distance_data.xlsxAmietia 16S aligned sequencesAligned sequences of the 16S mitochondrial rRNA gene from 14 randomly selected individuals (GenBank accession numbers: KJ469265-KJ469278) of Amietia spp on Mt. Kilimanjaro (Tanzania).Amietia_16S_aligned.txt