Date of Award

2019

First Advisor

Sarah Snyder

Second Advisor

Erin McMullin

Third Advisor

Donald McClelland

Abstract

With the advent of quick, efficient, and accurate genetic sequencing, ecologists and evolutionary biologists have moved to use genetic methods to better model, represent, and further understand the methods by which life diversifies and speciates. Demonstrating these methods using spatial analysis has resulted in a field dedicated to the integration of spatial mathematics, landscape ecology, and population genetics. This thesis explains the fundamental concepts and ideas of the field of landscape genetics, which aims to combine the practices of landscape ecology and population genetics to allow for an analysis of both over space and time. This sort of analysis allows for the viewing of complex spatial relations that were otherwise unachievable. To apply and practice these concepts, 32 samples of the Lesser Antillean Whistling Frog, Eleutherodactylus johnstonei, were gathered from six major locations on the island of Montserrat, to investigate variation via the Cytochrome-b region over physical space.

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