| Raccoon populations are infected with a raccoon-specific rabies virus strain across the eastern seaboard of the United States. Since rabies is fatal and can infect non-host mammalian species, control and eradication programs, especially in urban centres, are needed to protect human health. To provide information about raccoon dispersal for management purposes, genetic analyses at both a broad and fine scale were conducted. Mitochondrial control region DNA sequence data were analyzed for over 1000 raccoons across the eastern seaboard revealing 111 haplotypes that formed three distinct lineages. Despite the lack of geographic association of the lineages, considerable population structure was evident. At the broad scale geographic distance was found to be an important variable in explaining genetic distance, but a large amount of variation was left unexplained indicating important regional effects. At a fine scale major rivers were associated with population structure. Additional fine scale analysis was conducted using ten highly variable microsatellite loci isolated from raccoons; parentage assignment was used as a novel means of dispersal measurement and population genetic structure across the landscape was used to detect geographic barriers to movement. Parentage analysis of individuals in the Niagara (N = 296) and St. Lawrence (N = 593) regions revealed the majority of male and female raccoons did not frequently disperse large distances, where 80% of individuals dispersed less than 3 km. Spatial genetic analysis of these data indicated that females are more philopatric than males. Landscape analysis of genetic structure indicated the Niagara River (N = 744) is a barrier to gene flow, but the same was not found for the St. Lawrence (N = 802). The two regions have different habitat composition and the rivers have different characteristics, both having potential effects on raccoon dispersal across the rivers. The information obtained from these analyses implicates major rivers as an important factor in affecting genetic structure. Additionally, other ecological factors may contribute to the genetic structure and mobility of raccoons and implementation of rabies control programs should account for regional differences.; Keywords. Disease management, landscape genetics, microsatellite, Procyon lotor, phylogeography, raccoon, subspecies. |
