Do both sexes disperse and does one sex disperse further than the other?
Our results indicate that both sexes dispersed. There were no significant differences between adult females and males in mean mtDNA haplotype diversity (0.945 in females, 0.924 in males, permutation test p = 0.766), mtDNA nucleotide diversity (0.027 in females, 0.029 in males, permutation test p = 0.699), mean relatedness r (-0.013 in females, -0.056 in males, mean difference -0.040, lying within the 95% confidence interval (-0.048 – 0.054) obtained by bootstrapping) or mean heterozygosity HL (0.184 in females, 0.216 in males, paired t-test p = 0.438).
Dispersal was most likely opportunistic, as we did not find a spatial genetic structure in our study population. The correlation between genetic and spatial distances was not significant for neither sex, as the 95 % CI of autocorrelation r values overlapped zero for all distance classes (Supplementary Table 2, Fig. S1). The correlation between mtDNA haplotype distances and spatial distances in females was not significant either (Mantel correlation = 0.048, n = 91 dyads, right-tailed p = 0.342). The direct observation of dispersal (see below), the pattern of relatedness and the loose geographic clustering of the mtDNA haplotype network (most of the closely related haplotypes were sampled at nearby locations, Fig. 2) show that individuals often disperse over short distances. In one observed case, a young male dispersed to an unoccupied area adjacent to his natal group, and in five more cases, close-range dispersal events in the past could be inferred from the fact that adult first-degree kin occupied home ranges that were either adjacent or separated by 1–2 home ranges (Fig. 1). At the same time, the lack of spatial genetic structure or clear mtDNA haplotype clustering indicates that individuals also migrate further.