Signpost
- The restricted gene flow caused by the distance between populations can result in isolation by distance (IBD), a population structure model described in Sewall Wright’s seminal works (Wright, 1940, 1943). (perez2018, p.1884)
- Isolation by distance is predicted to be a ubiquitous process, as limited dispersal is believed to affect most species (Meirmans, 2012; Rousset, 1997) (perez2018, p.1885)
- We believe this proportion can be underestimated, as IBD tests can be nonsignificant even when IBD is present. Indeed, studies sampling from pre-defined populations showed a lower (Wilcoxon signed-rank test p = 0.0001) proportion of IBD detection (53.61% of the articles that tested for IBD detected its presence) than collecting individuals in a continuous landscape (85.71% of IBD detection). This difference can be related to the lack of statistical power in spatial correlation analyses with a small number of pairwise comparisons (Jenkins et al., 2010; Pelletier & Carstens, 2018), which is often the case in studies sampling defined populations. (perez2018, p.1885)