DISSERTATION RESEARCH:Integrating comparative phylogeography with ecological modeling to investigate Late Quaternary biogeography in four species of kangaroo rats (genus Dipodomys)

该项目探讨更新世冰期-间冰期循环期间的气候变化对北美西部大盆地物种分布和演化的作用。研究人员利用重建的最后一次冰川盛期(距今约21,000年)的气候条件来重建这一寒冷时期的物种分布，并将其与现代分布进行对比。然后，她提出了关于分布位置和大小随时间变化的假设，并使用遗传数据对这些假设进行了检验。她将这种方法应用于北美大盆地内分布的四种袋鼠(袋鼠属)，并评估了每种鼠对过去21,000年来气候变化的反应。这项研究旨在有效地检验关于大盆地生物如何响应过去气候变化的一般理论。了解气候变化、分布变化和种群结构之间的关系可以为保护工作提供重要的基础。例如，积累了高度遗传多样性的区域可能代表物种在过去的气候变化时期持续存在的地区，因此，随着地球经历未来人类导致的气候变化时期，应该优先将其列为潜在的保护区。

This project addresses the role of climatic changes during the Pleistocene glacial-interglacial cycles on the distribution and evolution of species in the Great Basin of western North America. The investigator uses reconstructions of climatic conditions of the last glacial maximum (approximately 21,000 years before present) to reconstruct species distributions during this cold period and contrasts them with modern distributions. She then formulates hypotheses about the changes in distributional locations and sizes through time and tests these hypotheses using genetic data. She applies this methodology to four species of kangaroo rats (genus Dipodomys) distributed within the Great Basin of North America and evaluates the response of each species to climatic changes over the past 21,000 years. This research aims to effectively test general theories on how Great Basin organisms responded to past climatic change. Understanding the relationships between climatic changes, distributional changes, and population structure can provide an important foundation for conservation efforts. For example, regions where high genetic diversity has accumulated may represent areas where species have persisted through past episodes of climate change, and should therefore be prioritized as potential protected areas as the Earth experiences future episodes of human-induced climate change.