Developing multivariate approaches to analyze ecological and genetic variation in caribou and other highly-vagile mammals

点击翻译按钮获取中文摘要

My previous work on wolves and my lab's initial findings on caribou demonstrate how highly vagile organisms such as caribou, elk and wolves may be ideal study species to recognize Evolutionary Significant Units. Since the effects of topographic barriers on reproductive isolation are limited in these species, other influences on differentiation can be studied, including a suite of traits that may also be important for conservation purposes. Together with one PhD, two Master students and one technician, I will study the influence of post-glacial events, landscape features and recent gene flow on differentiation of northern species, using caribou as model species. We will also compare caribou data to existing datasets on elk and wolves (past NSERC and NSF projects, respectively). This program aims at developing a multivariate friction map (representing the cost of movement through the landscape) by using GPS information available on caribou, elk and wolves and by characterizing habitat suitability by means of Resource Selection Functions. From a theoretical point of view, we will contribute integrative multivariate models to predict the levels of genetic relatedness of individual caribou pairs dependent upon habitat factors and upon taxonomic status. This is a novel analytical approach (acknowledging need for shift from population-level analyses) that will allow testing the effects on genetic distance of geographic distance and comparing this to the effects of topographic barriers and of the realistic cost of movement through the landscape. The research program will sample in the Canadian Rockies and contiguous areas along the entire post-glacial distribution of caribou to determine the extent of tundra/woodland introgression, likely a post-glacial event (information currently available in my lab, but for the southern Rockies only). This new research program therefore contributes molecular data and integrates it with existing ecological data with the purpose of understanding spatial patterns of differentiation that could be maintained in caribou (i.e. a sensitive and threatened species) and in elk or wolves by employing an original methodology that could serve as a model approach for terrestrial species in general.