Molecular Analyses of Historical and Contemporary Gene Flow in Marine Species

DNA分析的分子方法将被用来检查具有全球分布的几个海洋物种种群之间的遗传联系。将特别关注海龟，在那里存在长期存在的问题，如雏鸟殖民的历史时代，雌性是否返回其出生地筑巢，以及涉及雄性和雌性的雏鸟之间的遗传联系程度。这种对海龟生活史的分子评估将为海龟群体之间的人口独立程度提供证据，这对制定这些濒危物种的种群管理战略应该是至关重要的。类似的分子遗传分析也将在全球分布的海洋鸟类上进行，这可能会被证明展示出与海龟相似的生活史和迁徙模式。对这些和其他海洋物种的核基因和线粒体基因的DNA分析将提供有关生物迁移模式的知识，这些模式很难直接观察到。这些数据还将有助于发展一种历史，在这一历史中，独立基因谱系之间的一致性程度被提议作为种群分离历史规模的指标。

Molecular methods of DNA analysis will be employed to examine the genetic relatedness among populations of several marine species that have global distributions. Special attention will be devoted to marine turtles, where longstanding questions exist concerning the historical times of rookery colonization, whether females return to their natal sites to nest, and the degree of genetic contact among rookeries involving both males and females. This molecular appraisal of the life history of marine turtles will offer evidence on the degree of demographic independence among turtle colonies that should be critical in the development of populaton management strategies for these endangered species. Similar molecular genetic assays will also be conducted on globally-distributed oceanic birds, which may prove to exhibit life history and migrational patterns somewhat analogous to those of the marine turtles. Assays of DNA from both the nuclear and mitochondrial genes in these and other marine species will provide knowledge of migratory patterns in organisms that are difficult to observe directly. The data will also contribute to development of a history in which the degree of concordance among the genealogies of independent genes is proposed as an indicator of the historical magnitudes of population separations.