Doctoral Dissertation Research: Identifying and Increasing Landscape Connectivity for Endangered Species

这个博士论文研究项目将研究人类的发展和活动如何影响食肉动物种群及其在多个尺度上的持久性，通过确定人类改造景观中老虎种群的运动走廊。 老虎是世界上最濒危的野生猫科动物，全球老虎数量的减少几乎影响到每个国家。 影响老虎的活动有：老虎产品的贸易和消费、偷猎老虎、非法伐木、食用在老虎栖息地生长的农产品、执法疏忽和腐败，以及支持执法的资金不足。 全球的发展速度正在加快，从而增加了生境砍伐森林和破碎化的速度。由于野生动物被限制在较小的栖息地片段，这些片段之间的移动走廊需要保持，以允许动物的持续扩散，从而提高野生动物种群的持久性。 该项目将提供新的见解，说明如何确定连接特定物种不同亚群的运动走廊，从而促进不同亚群之间的基因交流，并帮助保护物种的遗传活力。 该项目将展示使用图论和连通性分析来确定物种栖息地连通性的程度的实用性。 虽然本项目将侧重于苏门答腊虎栖息地的连通性，但项目方法和研究结果将适用于其他栖息地的野生动物，如叉角羚羊、佛罗里达豹和东部灰狼。 该项目将帮助确定维持濒危物种的强大集合种群所需的生境走廊，从而协助土地管理人员和其他人制定有效的战略，保护物种，同时帮助促进经济上有益的土地利用。 作为博士论文研究改进奖，该奖项还将为有前途的学生提供支持，使其能够建立强大的独立研究事业。博士生将使用遗传学，生态学和地理学的分析工具，通过将遗传相关数据与景观生态数据和建模相结合，促进对人类发展对老虎种群影响的理解。 通过在整个苏门答腊景观中收集老虎粪便样本而非侵入性地收集的老虎DNA将被鉴定。 遗传物质将被分析，以确定老虎在看似不相连的保护区是否可以一起繁殖，从而表明老虎是否跨越保护区之间的多用途景观。景观建模将用于识别潜在的野生动物走廊，然后通过遗传学验证，以确定老虎是否真的使用这些走廊进行运动，特别是如果它们在运动后繁殖。 学生将使用卫星项圈提供的数据确定老虎可以穿越哪些人类改造的区域，进一步验证老虎如何浏览多用途景观，并确定“老虎友好”的区域。 她将使用景观变化模型来确定预测的未来老虎运动走廊，以确定需要保护的受威胁走廊，以确保老虎在未来的持续存在。

This doctoral dissertation research project will examine how human development and activities affect carnivore populations and their persistence at multiple scales by identifying movement corridors for tiger populations in a human-modified landscape. The decline in the global tiger population, the world's most endangered wild cat species, affects nearly every nation. Activities that affect tigers are the trade and consumption of tiger-based products, tiger poaching, illegal logging, consumption of agricultural products grown on land that was previously tiger habitat, negligent and corrupt law enforcement, and inadequate funding to support law enforcement. The rate of development is increasing globally, thus increasing the rate of habitat deforestation and fragmentation. As wildlife is restricted to smaller habitat fragments movement corridors between these fragments need to be maintained in order to permit continued dispersal of animals, thereby enhancing the persistence of wildlife populations. This project will provide new insights regarding how movement corridors can be identified that connect different subpopulations of a specific species, thereby facilitating exchanges of genes among the different subpopulations and help preserve the genetic vitality of the species. The project will demonstrate the utility of using graph theory and connectivity analyses to ascertain the extent of habitat connectivity for a species. Although this project will focus on habitat connectivity of tigers in Sumatra, project approaches and findings will be applicable to wildlife in other habitats, such as pronghorn antelope, Florida panther, and Eastern gray wolf. The project will help to identify habitat corridors needed to maintain robust metapopulations of endangered species, thereby assisting land managers and others to develop effective strategies that can preserve species while helping advance economically beneficial land uses. As a Doctoral Dissertation Research Improvement award, this award also will provide support to enable a promising student to establish a strong independent research career.The doctoral student will employ analytic tools from genetics, ecology, and geography to advance understanding of human development impacts on tiger populations by pairing genetic-relatedness data with landscape ecological data and modeling. Tiger DNA that was non-invasively gathered by collecting tiger fecal samples throughout a Sumatran landscape will be identified. Genetic material will be analyzed to determine whether tigers in seemingly unconnected protected areas can breed together, thus indicating whether tigers cross multiuse landscapes between protected areas. Landscape modeling will be used to identify potential wildlife corridors, which are then validated by genetics to determine whether tigers actually use these corridors for movement, and especially if they breed after movement. The student will identify which human-modified areas tigers can traverse using data provided from satellite collars, further validating how tigers navigate multiuse landscapes and also identifying "tiger-friendly" areas. She will identify predicted future tiger movement corridors using landscape change modeling to identify threatened corridors in need of protection to ensure tiger persistence into the future.