RESEARCH ARTICLE Genetic connectivity of the grey partridge in central northern France in a highly man dominated landscape Nicolas Bech • Ste ´phanie Manel • Elisabeth Bro • Claude Novoa • Benjamin-Marc Bijaoui-Georget • Sophie Beltran-Bech • Je ´ro ˆme Boissier Received: 5 August 2012 / Accepted: 8 March 2014 Ó Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht 2014 Abstract The loss and fragmentation of the landscape are the main causes of the decline and the extinction of many wildlife species. In this study we test the impact of land- scape features on the genetic connectivity of a sedentary bird. Populations of our case study, the grey partridge (Perdix perdix armoricana), occur in central northern France. This is considered as the last bastion of high grey partridge densities in Europe and thus represents a relevant zone for the conservation of P. p. armoricana. Despite a highly man dominated landscape, results from the analysis of 12 microsatellite genotypes suggest the beginning of a genetic structure. This emerging genetic structure can result from the last historical event having occurred in the study area: a massive urbanization since the nineteenth century following the increase of the human density and town surface. Another hypothesis suggests that the weak genetic structure can result from a massive restocking with captive-bred individuals at a more or less recent point in time. Keywords Genetic connectivity Á Microsatellite Á Landscape genetic Á Urbanization Á Perdix perdix Introduction There are now ample evidences that both loss and frag- mentation of the landscape have negative impacts on wildlife populations, and that they are the main causes of the decline and the extinction of many species (Miller and Hobbs 2002; Fischer and Lindenmayer 2007). These landscape modifications create discontinuities and losses in Electronic supplementary material The online version of this article (doi:10.1007/s10592-014-0594-z) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users. N. Bech (&) Á S. Beltran-Bech Laboratoire Ecologie & Biologie des Interactions, Universite ´ de Poitiers, E ´ cologie et Biologie des Interactions, UMR CNRS 7267. Equipe E ´ cologie E ´ volution Symbiose, 6 rue Michel Brunet, TSA 51106, 86022 Poitiers Cedex, France e-mail: nicolas.bech@univ-poitiers.fr S. Beltran-Bech e-mail: sophie.beltran.bech@univ-poitiers.fr S. Manel IRD, UMR 151, Population Environment and Development Laboratory (LPED), University of Aix-marseille, 13331 Marseille, France e-mail: stephanie.manel@univ-amu.fr E. Bro Research Department, ONCFS, Saint-Benoist, 78 612 Le Perray en Yvelines cedex, France e-mail: elisabeth.bro@oncfs.gouv.fr C. Novoa Department of Studies and Research, ONCFS, 66500 Prades, France e-mail: claude.novoa@oncfs.gouv.fr B.-M. Bijaoui-Georget Á J. Boissier University of Perpignan Via Domitia, 66860 Perpignan, France e-mail: bmbgeo@yahoo.com J. Boissier e-mail: boissier@univ-perp.fr B.-M. Bijaoui-Georget Á J. Boissier CNRS, UMR 5244, Evolutionary and Ecology of Interactions (2EI), 66860 Perpignan, France 123 Conserv Genet DOI 10.1007/s10592-014-0594-z