However, high nucleotide diversity could also be a signature of admixture from several refugia [3], [5], [45]; moreover, the number of private alleles (2) in the Limerick sample was not higher than in many other sampled populations.
Principal components analysis of craniometric data clearly distinguishes the mid-Holocene population at Gobero (Gob-m) from all other sampled populations, including the early Holocene population at Gobero, Iberomaurusian and Capsian populations from the Maghreb, "Mechtoids" from Mali and Mauritania, as well as much older Aterian samples (Figure 6).
Bats from LS use relatively lower RFs given their body size compared to other sampled populations.
A lack of successful dispersal from southerly reefs may explain the divergence of Malindi from other sampled populations.
Scandura et al., (2008; 2011b) using 10 autosomal microsatellites, found the Sardinian WB clustering separately in a Bayesian analysis, with a minor overlap to other sampled populations.
In addition, the population structure analysis further supports limited connectivity between southern Oregon (Population 1) and all other sampled populations, suggesting that realized dispersal may be even lower along the Oregon Washington coast.
Interestingly, populations of the first cluster are also those exhibiting the highest proportion of non-blotched individuals 56-644%) and have a central geographical distribution compared to the other sampled populations (5-12).
The pairwise FST values calculated among all populations sampled in the distribution range of W. auropunctata showed that our focal introduced populations used for thermotolerance experiments were genetically closer to native Guianese populations than to any other sampled native populations (Brazil and Costa Rica; Fig. S2).
Our microsatellite data set showed that the three tested introduced populations were genetically closer to the native populations investigated here for thermotolerance than to any other sampled native populations, but failed to prove close genetic relationships between tested native and introduced populations.
Further research is needed to evaluate the validity of the measure in other samples and populations.
