Aim To test the influence of historical and contemporary environment in shaping the genetic diversity of freshwater fauna we contrast genetic structure in two co‐distributed, but ecologically distinct, rainbowfish; a habitat generalist ( Melanotaenia splendida ) and a habitat specialist ( M. trifasciata ). Location Fishes were sampled from far northern Australia (Queensland and Northern Territory). Methods We used sequence dat...

Genetic data are being generated at unprecedented rates. Policies of many journals, institutions and funding bodies aim to ensure that these data are publicly archived so that published results are reproducible. Additionally, publicly archived data can be ‘repurposed’ to address new questions in the future. In 2011, along with other leading journals in ecology and evolution, Molecular Ecology implemented mandatory public data...

Reproductive skew is a measure of the proportion of individuals of each sex that breed in a group and is a valuable measure for understanding the evolution and maintenance of sociality. Here, we provide the first quantification of reproductive skew within social groups of European badgers Meles meles , throughout an 18‐year study in a high‐density population. We used 22 microsatellite loci to analyse within‐group relatedness a...

The Eurasian badger ( Meles meles ) has been implicated in the transmission of bovine tuberculosis (TB, caused by Mycobacterium bovis ) to cattle. However, evidence suggests that attempts to reduce the spread of TB among cattle in Britain by culling badgers have mixed effects. A large‐scale field experiment (the randomized badger culling trial, RBCT) showed that widespread proactive badger culling reduced the incidence of TB i...

The costs and benefits of natal philopatry are central to the formation and maintenance of social groups. Badger groups, thought to form passively according to the resource dispersion hypothesis (RDH), are maintained through natal philopatry and delayed dispersal; however, there is minimal evidence for the functional benefits of such grouping. We assigned parentage to 630 badger cubs from a high‐density population in Wytham Wo...

Badgers are facultatively social, forming large groups at high density. Group‐living appears to have high reproductive costs for females, and may lead to increased levels of inbreeding. The extent of female competition for reproduction has been estimated from field data, but knowledge of male reproductive success and the extent of extra‐group paternity remains limited. Combining field data with genetic data (16 microsatellite...

It has been argued that demographic and environmental factors will cause small, isolated populations to become extinct before genetic factors have a significant negative impact. Islands provide an ideal opportunity to test this hypothesis because they often support small, isolated populations that are highly vulnerable to extinction. To assess the potential negative impact of isolation and small population size, we compared le...