• STRUCTURE identified 2 populations from the samples collected in Alberta, Saskatchewan, Montana, and Wyoming - (1) the Powder River Basin and (2) Northern Montana (everything north of the Missouri River in Montana).
• The Northern Montana population is further subdivided into two subpopulations: (1) North of the Milk River (NMR; Canada and everything north of Milk River in Montana) and (2) South of the Milk River (SMR; everything between the Milk & Missouri Rivers).
• Genetic diversity values were high and equivalent in both subpopulations.
• There was a significant isolation by distance relationship for leks within the Northern Montana population indicating that close leks are more related to each other than distant leks.
• Relatedness-based isolation by distance and the STRUCTURE based assignment test revealed that birds are dispersing up to approximately 300 km in the Northern Montana population.
• The STRUCTURE based assignment test revealed large scale dispersal between the two subpopulations: 433 first generation dispersers found in NMR that originated from SMR and 197 first generation dispersers found in SMR that originated in NMR.
• Lek to lek dispersal could only be measured for one genetically unique Alberta lek (lek 1/9), but this showed that 68 first generation dispersers moved between 3-316km to 14 leks across the Northern Montana population.
Red dot = lek 1/9, pink dots = leks with 1st generation dispersers, blue dots = leks with 2nd generation dispersers, pink and blue dots = leks with 1st and 2nd generation dispersers
• Analysis of molecular variance (AMOVA) tests revealed that the majority of the genetic diversity is found within each individual lek.
• No significant difference in genetic diversity levels between the range periphery and range core were found.