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We thank Paz-Vinas et al. for developing aspects of our macrogenetics paper that we were not able to cover in detail. We agree with some of their messages and support the call for careful use of compiled data, particularly when repurposing it for new questions.
Macrogenetics (Blanchet et al. 2017) investigates large-scale patterns in intraspecific genetic diversity (IGD) across many taxa, as they relate to ecological processes and anthropogenic impacts. Macrogenetics is a fast-emerging field, so we hope this exchange with Paz-Vinas contributes to its development.
Our paper presented a global analysis of the effects of human population density and land use on patterns of IGD; the first (and most substantive) part of our paper focused on a spatial analysis and the second (using a much smaller dataset) presented a time series analysis. Paz-Vinas et al. comment primarily on the latter.
Paz-Vinas et al.’s comment raises some points we addressed in Millette et al. (2020) and present two issues that question the main finding of our paper captured by our title: “No consistent effects of humans on animal genetic diversity worldwide”. Yet, nothing in their comment undermines our conclusions. We address the two major points of their comment below.