Landscape Genetics of Wildlife Connectivity Across Agricultural Matrices in South East Nigeria

The maintenance of genetic connectivity among wildlife populations in fragmented agricultural landscapes is a critical conservation challenge, as disrupted gene flow can lead to inbreeding, genetic erosion, and reduced adaptive capacity. In South East Nigeria's intensively farmed landscape, remnant forest patches and gallery forests represent the primary refugia for forest wildlife, yet the degree to which agricultural matrices facilitate or impede wildlife movement and gene flow remains unknown. This dissertation applies landscape genetics methodology to quantify wildlife connectivity across agricultural matrices in Anambra, Enugu, and Imo States, within Nigeria's South East geopolitical zone. Four focal species were selected to represent different dispersal capacities and habitat associations: the Maxwell's duiker, African civet, African striped squirrel, and a riparian-associated kingfisher species. Non-invasive genetic sampling was conducted at 35 locations across the fragmented landscape, with microsatellite genotyping performed for each species. Landscape resistance modeling using circuit theory was used to identify optimal and suboptimal connectivity pathways across the agricultural matrix. Isolation-by-resistance analysis tests the concordance between genetic distance and landscape resistance for each species. Results demonstrate significantly higher genetic differentiation in the two habitat specialist species compared to the generalists, confirming landscape-level filtering of dispersal capacity. Resistance models identify oil palm corridors and riparian strips as the least resistant movement pathways for multiple species. Original contributions include a multispecies connectivity resistance surface for South East Nigeria and actionable corridor priority maps for regional land use planning. Keywords: landscape genetics, wildlife connectivity, agricultural matrix, South East Nigeria, gene flow