EAGER: Metapopulation and metacommunity dynamics in a changing spatial and environmental mosaic - The importance of dispersal and gene flow

水资源开发项目通过改变植被、改变湿地的季节性和增加运河的连通性，改变了水生景观。这些变化对水生动植物的生态和进化影响尚不清楚，但在未来几十年可能会变得更加普遍。该项目将利用美国历史上最大的水开发项目的70年记录，以确定水流和水量的变化如何改变小型水生动物的生态和进化。这项研究的一个令人兴奋的部分是将这些动物从埋在泥中长达70年的蛋中复活。 他们的基因将与现代人进行比较，以了解发生了什么变化以及为什么会发生这些变化。 研究生和本科生将接受指导，学习尖端遗传技术、实验设计、统计分析和科学写作。 研究结果将通过与公立学校的联系、与志愿公民科学家的合作、博客和网站向公众传达。了解空间过程的结构是生态学的一个关键需求。扩散就是这样一个过程，也是物种对迅速变化的环境作出反应的主要机制;它在决定群落结构和生态系统功能方面也很重要。 然而，物种的快速适应可能会混淆对扩散作用的理解，这受到环境空间结构和优先效应的影响。本研究的目的是测量在一个复杂的环境马赛克的变化时期的无脊椎动物种群的生态和进化反应，使用一种新的方法：景观古遗传学。 将使用哥伦比亚盆地项目作为一个非常大的实验系统来测试假设。这项研究将利用一些无脊椎动物的一个独特特征，即长期休眠，来追踪几十年来水分布变化中的种群水平变化。将采用景观调查、70年来的历史生态数据、DNA分析和景观遗传学相结合的方法。

Water development projects have transformed aquatic landscapes by changing vegetation, altering seasonality of wetlands, and increasing connectivity via canals. The ecological and evolutionary effects of these changes on aquatic plants and animals are poorly understood, but will likely become more common in the coming decades. This project will make use of 70-year records of the largest water development project in U.S. history to determine how changes in water flow and amount have altered the ecology and evolution of small aquatic animals. An exciting part of the study involves resurrecting these animals from eggs buried in mud for up to 70 years. Their genes will be compared to modern-day individuals to understand what changes have taken place and why those changes have occurred. Graduate and undergraduate students will be mentored, learning cutting-edge genetic techniques, experimental design, statistical analyses, and scientific writing. Results will be communicated to the public through outreach to public schools, collaboration with volunteer citizen scientists, a blog and a website.Understanding the structure of spatial processes is a critical need in ecology. Dispersal is one such process and a primary mechanism by which species respond to a rapidly changing environment; it is also important in determining the structure of communities and functioning of ecosystems. However, understanding dispersal's role can be confounded by rapid adaptation of species, which is affected by the spatial structure of the environment and priority effects. The goal of this study is to measure ecological and evolutionary responses of invertebrate populations across a period of change in a complex environmental mosaic, using a new approach: landscape paleogenetics. Hypotheses will be tested using the Columbia Basin Project as an extraordinarily large experimental system. The study will exploit a unique feature of some invertebrates, prolonged dormancy, to trace population-level shifts over decades of changes in water distribution. A combination of landscape surveys, historical ecological data going back 70 years, DNA analysis, and landscape genetics will be employed.