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

水利开发项目改变了植被，改变了湿地的季节性，增加了运河的连通性，从而改变了水生景观。这些变化对水生动植物的生态和进化影响知之甚少，但在未来几十年可能会变得更加常见。该项目将利用美国历史上最大的水开发项目70年的记录，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从埋在泥浆中长达70年的卵子中复活这些动物。他们的基因将与现代个体进行比较，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，学习尖端基因技术、实验设计、统计分析和科学写作。结果将通过与公立学校的外展、与志愿公民科学家的合作、博客和网站向公众公布。了解空间过程的结构是生态学的一个关键需求。扩散是一种这样的过程，也是物种对迅速变化的环境作出反应的主要机制；它在确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，因为物种的适应受到环境的空间结构和优先效应的影响。这项研究的目标是使用一种新的方法：景观古遗传学，测量复杂环境镶嵌中无脊椎动物种群在一段时间内的生态和进化反应。假说将用哥伦比亚盆地项目作为一个非常大的实验系统来检验。这项研究将利用一些无脊椎动物的一个独特特征--长期休眠--来追踪几十年来水资源分配变化中种群水平的变化。将结合景观调查、70年前的历史生态数据、DNA分析和景观遗传学进行研究。

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.