We know very little about populations from fragmented habitats, although we do know that island populations of a variety of species are highly
philopatric (Stobo and McLaren 1975, Eliason 1986, Arcese 1989, Nagata 1993, Part 1996).
1984) or if the
philopatric dispersal of offspring leads to sibling competition (Maynard Smith 1978).
Among-coterie genetic differentiation likely resulted from high relatedness of
philopatric females and their progeny within coteries, and may contribute to the evolutionary maintenance of social groups (Chesser et al.
We restricted analyses to females, because they are
philopatric after attainment of breeding age for ducks, in general (Rohwer and Anderson 1988), and for Common Pochards at Engure Marsh, in particular (Blums et al.
Significant microgeographic genetic structure has been detected in several independent colony-founding wasp or bee species that tend to be
philopatric (Metcalf 1980; Crozier et al.
We quantified the exchange of birds between the main study area, Wytham Woods, and those nesting in hedgerows and small woodlots around Wytham (the "surrounding area"), and evaluated whether there was phenotypic variation between dispersing and
philopatric birds.
In addition, gender-biased dispersal, in which females are relatively
philopatric, can impose geographical structure on the distribution of mtDNA variation, whereas nuclear-gene flow through male migration homogenizes the distribution of nuclear variation (e.g., Melnick and Hoelzer 1992).
There is also no difference in philopatry between sexes, which would appear as a higher local survival for the more
philopatric sex.
(The geographic speciation model depicted in Figure 1B is one of numerous variations on the theme and is probably not the most realistic example nor the example where congruence between the mt-haplotype tree and the species tree is most probable relative to that of a nuclear-gene tree.) Thus, Hoelzer is correct that the mt-genome could have a higher effective population size in circumstances where local populations are small and females are more
philopatric than males, but it does not logically follow that the mt-haplotype tree will have a lesser probability of congruence with the species tree.
That young eagles are highly
philopatric, with more than 84% returning to the natal population (Ferrer 1993b), is consistent with this suggestion.
A recent review of
philopatric marine invertebrate species provided evidence for self-fertilization in 17% and suggested that many more species may be biparentally inbred (Knowlton and Jackson 1993).
Their core group of species, which showed similar pattern among locations, included a viviparous species (potentially
philopatric) and one with facultatively pelagic juveniles that had the highest dispersal potential.