DISPERSAL AND GENETIC STRUCTURE IN KANGAROO RATS.

We used spatial autocorrelation of allele frequencies to examine local structure in a population of bannertailed kangaroo rats for which Wright's isolation-by-distance model seems applicable, and for which we can estimate neighborhood size based on 10 years of data on demography and dispersal. The uniform dispersion and strong philopatric tendencies of this species provide a test case for the idea that restricted dispersal can lead to local genetic structure in small mammals. Whether we considered such complications as nonnormal dispersal distances, variation in lifetime reproductive success, fluctuating population density, and adult as well as juvenile dispersal, our estimate of effective population size was fewer than 15 animals.