RoL: FELS: EAGER: Landscape Phenomics: Predicting vulnerability to climate variation by linking environmental heterogeneity to genetic and phenotypic variation

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Biodiversity is critically important, however unprecedented losses are occurring in response to environmental change and human development of the planet. Since many species have survived past and present changes, understanding how they do so can provide clues for conserving biodiversity. This project seeks to address this question by evaluating different factors that contribute to a species' survival within its natural range. The research team will focus on the tailed frog, which lives only in cold, fast-flowing mountain streams in the U.S. Pacific Northwest. Within this region, many populations of frogs live in low elevation habitats that are warmer than high elevation habitats. These populations are likely to be the first to experience temperatures higher than what tailed frogs can tolerate as climates warm. It is possible, however, that frogs from these populations may also be able to tolerate warmer temperatures relative to those that live only in colder, high-elevation streams. This project will examine the implications for how tailed frogs or similar species might survive in the face changes in temperature. Uncovering these rules for how species may persist requires understanding how differences in the environment affect thermal tolerance and other traits that can allow species to survive as conditions are altered over time. This project will provide research training and mentoring for a postdoctoral scholar, and graduate and undergraduate students.The researchers will uncover rules for spatial patterns of vulnerability using a four-pronged integrative framework. This research links environmental heterogeneity to genetic and phenotypic variation in resilience traits. First, the study will characterize variation in the thermal environment and food resources in tailed frog streams. Second, it will test the effects of landscape heterogeneity on genome-wide variation and microevolutionary processes (selection, drift, and gene flow) using a landscape genomics approach. Third, it will estimate the contributions of genetics and the environment in generating variation in key resilience traits related to thermal performance using quantitative genetics, a genome-wide association study, and acclimation experiments. Finally, they will predict current and future temperature tolerance and population vulnerability by modeling changes in stream temperature, food resources, traits, and population responses.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.