Habitat preference predicts genetic diversity and population divergence in Amazonian birds

Abstract

The ecological traits of organisms may predict important evolutionary parameters such as genetic diversity, population genetic structure, and demographic history. Making these ecological-evolutionary links is difficult because robust, comparable genetic estimates are required from many species with differing ecologies. In Amazonian birds, differences in habitat preference are an important component of ecological diversity. A subset of Amazonian birds is restricted to forest edge and open forest along floodplains, whereas another subset occurs only in the interior of tall, upland forest. Here, we examine the link between habitat and evolutionary metrics using 20 pairs of closely related and co-distributed bird species in which one member of the pair occurs primarily in forest edge and floodplains, and the other occurs in upland forest interior. We use standardized geographic sampling and genomic data from the same set of 2,416 independent markers to estimate genetic diversity, population structure, and demographic history in each species. We find that species of upland forest have higher genetic diversity, greater divergence across the landscape, more genetically distinct populations, and deeper gene histories than floodplain species. Our results reveal that species ecology in the form of habitat preference is an important predictor of genetic diversity and divergence and suggest that floodplain and upland avifaunas in the Amazon may be on separate evolutionary trajectories and require different conservation strategies.