DISSERTATION RESEARCH: Influence of environmental variables on gene flow, population structure and disease transmission in the gopher tortoise Gopherus polyphemus

了解道路、河流和土壤等景观特征如何影响个体的行动，对于管理受威胁和濒危物种非常重要。本研究旨在使用新的景观遗传学方法来识别景观特征和栖息地变量，这些变量可能影响受到联邦威胁的地鼠龟(Gopherus Polyphemus)的个体运动和种群生物学。这将有助于我们了解自然和人为影响的景观特征如何影响乌龟的分布。研究结果将极大地有助于根据形成种群自然边界的景观特征及其所包含的独特基因来指定保护管理区。在个体层面上，遗传分析将与详细的生态数据相结合，以检验关于栖息地特定方面在塑造局部运动方面的相对重要性的假设。从这项研究中获得的信息还将与一种新出现的传染病的发生数据相结合，以更好地了解景观和生态如何影响疾病传播。拟议的研究通过展示其在濒危物种种群管理问题上的直接适用性，有可能推动景观遗传学领域的发展。这项工作已经为几名本科少数民族学生提供了研究机会，利用目前的资金，另一名学生将接受实地和实验室培训。这项研究的结果将在各种教育环境中传播，包括在当地高中的教育宣传，在专业会议上的陈述，以及在同行评议的期刊上发表。

Understanding how landscape features such as roads, rivers and soil influence the movement of individuals is important for managing threatened and endangered species. This study aims to use novel landscape genetic methods to identify landscape features and habitat variables that may shape individual movement and population biology in the federally threatened gopher tortoise (Gopherus polyphemus). This will aid in our understanding of how natural and human-influenced landscape features affect tortoise distribution. The results will greatly assist in the designation of conservation management areas based on landscape features that form natural boundaries to populations and the unique genes they contain. At the individual level, genetic analyses will be combined with detailed ecological data to test hypotheses about the relative importance of particular aspects of the habitat in shaping local movements. The information gained from this study will also be combined with data on the occurrence of an emerging infectious disease to better understand how landscape and ecology may affect disease transmission.The proposed research has the potential to advance the field of landscape genetics by demonstrating its direct applicability to population management issues for threatened and endangered species. This work has already provided research opportunities for several undergraduate minority students and with the current funding an additional student will receive field and laboratory training. Results from this research will be disseminated in a variety of educational settings including educational outreach at local high schools, presentations at professional meetings, and publication in peer-reviewed journals.