Résumé
The increasing availability of genomic data from non-model species presents exciting opportunities to investigate the role of environmental and demographic changes in shaping genetic diversity. This is particularly important for endangered species, aiding conservationists in unraveling the primary drivers impacting genetic loss and connectivity, when demographic surveysare difficult to obtain. Despite ample evidence that past population structure and fragmentation have shaped the genomes of species across various biomes, assessing the impact of very recent demographic or environmental changes (within the last 50 generations) remains challenging. Based on a simulation study, we will demonstrate how several novel summary statistics derived from genotypic and genealogical (ARG-based) data can aid in detecting, dating and quantifying recent changes in connectivity with increased accuracy. We will discuss the challenges of inferring recent fragmentation events and highlight the most promising research space (in terms of sequencing data types and statistical methods) to help characterize recent connectivity changes in endangered species.