INTRODUCTION
Macro-ecology and conservation biology now include “macro-genetic”
studies that repurpose genetic data from public databases (e.g. Manel et
al. 2020) to explore patterns and drivers of intraspecific genetic
diversity (IGD) for multiple taxa across large spatial and/or temporal
scales (Blanchet et al. 2017). The macro-genetic study by Millette et
al. (2020) sought to elucidate relationships between human population
density and recent land-use change on animal IGD, but we explain here
that technical limitations of the approach may prevent the detection of
anthropogenic effects on IGD. Although the authors acknowledged several
constraints, and presented their results with more nuance than previous
macro-genetic studies (e.g. Miraldo et al. 2016), issues remain that
cannot be resolved or adequately addressed by tempering the
interpretation.