Cape Rockjumper Genetic Data from South African Sky Islands

73 Cape Rockjumper (Chaetops frenatus) samples from 13 localities across 8 mountain ranges were sequenced for two mitochondrial loci and one nuclear locus. The dataset, produced by Krista N. Oswald of Rhodes University, shows low overall genetic diversity and no evidence of geographically-based genetic structuring. Results suggest a recent bottleneck or founder effect, indicated by a significantly negative Tajima's D value.

Use Cases

• Modeling population connectivity based on the absence of genetic structure across mountain ranges.
• Assessing genetic diversity and bottleneck effects using mitochondrial and nuclear sequence data.
• Studying the impact of a shrinking thermal niche on dispersal capacities in range-restricted species.

Strengths

• Data includes genetic sequences from 73 individual birds, providing a substantial sample size.
• Samples are drawn from 13 localities across 8 distinct mountain ranges, offering broad geographic coverage.
• Analysis includes multiple genetic markers (two mitochondrial loci, one nuclear locus).

Limitations

• Column-level documentation is absent; field semantics must be inferred after download.
• Row count is unknown, which may limit suitability assessment.
• Data may reflect geographic bias inherent to the specific sky island system studied.

Provenance

Source

Krista N. Oswald, Rhodes University

Collection Method

Genetic sequencing of samples collected from the Cape Fold Belt sky islands.

Geography

Cape Fold Belt, southwest South Africa