CRB: Population Viability of Tropical Forest Vertebrates

热带森林生境的破坏和破碎化是 对地球生物多样性的最大威胁 的 遗传和人口因素在灭绝中的作用 在破碎的栖息地斑块中的小种群被理解为 理论上是这样，但实际上却没有得到很好的证明。 测试现有的 理论和改进生物多样性保护技术， 研究人员将开发一种新的监测方法， 在最近分散的种群中的种群生存能力。 具体而言，他们将进行人口生存能力分析， 老鼠、树鼩和其他小型哺乳动物种群的数量 在最初的六年里， 隔离后的几年 这些栖息地 1987年，Chiew Larn水库建成， 洪水淹没了空盛野生动物园的一个森林山谷 保护区，泰国，并创造了165个岛屿。 人口 将通过季节性监测选定人口的变化， 捕捉活体以及遗传变异、近亲繁殖 基因流 这项研究的新颖之处在于， 将在DNA序列水平上进行监测， 非侵入性地从拔下的毛发中提取。 这项研究将有助于我们基本了解 进化生物学和生态学在许多方面。 它将 在所述第一序列水平中提供关于 核和线粒体基因的数量在几个自由- 分布在哺乳动物中。 它还将提供第一批 种群的遗传和生态方面 在关键的前20代， 在孤立化之后。 此外，该研究还承诺， 对保护生物学有三个重要的贡献。 第一，基因监测技术的发展 基于对头发DNA的非侵入性采样， 适用性 第二，证明人口 生存能力可以监测常见的小型哺乳动物应该导致 以改善对更稀有和更濒危的 物种 最后，总结了本次研究对泰国的启示 森林片断应适用于生物多样性 在热带地区的其他地方。

Habitat destruction and fragmentation in tropical forests are the single largest threat to the planet's biodiversity. The roles of genetic and demographic factors in the extinction of small populations in fragmented habitat patches are understood in theory but poorly documented empirically. To test existing theory and to improve techniques of biodiversity conservation, the investigators will develop a new method of monitoring population viability in recently fragmented populations. Specifically, they will conduct population viability analyses of rat, tree shrew, and other small mammal populations in small rainforest patches of different sizes during the first six years following isolation. These habitat patches were all isolated in 1987 when the creation of the Chiew Larn reservoir flooded a forested valley in the Khlong Saeng Wildlife Sanctuary, Thailand, and created 165 islands. Demographic changes in selected populations will be monitored by seasonal live-trapping as will levels of genetic variation, inbreeding and gene flow. The study is novel in that the genetic changes will be monitored at the DNA sequence level with DNA obtained non-invasively from plucked hair. This study will contribute to our basic understanding of evolutionary biology and ecology in a number of ways. It will provide among the first sequence-level data on variation in a number of nuclear and mitochondrial genes in several free- ranging mammal species. It will also provide one of the first cases where both genetic and ecological aspects of population viability are monitored in the critical first 20 generations following insularization. In addition, the study promises to contribute to conservation biology in three significant ways. First, the development of the genetic monitoring technique based on non-invasive sampling of DNA from hair will have wide applicability. Second, the demonstration that population viability can be monitored in common small mammals should lead to improved management practices for rarer and more endangered species. Finally, the lessons learned from this study in Thai forest fragments should be applicable to biodiversity conservation elsewhere in the tropics.