The role of landscape structure in shaping genetic variation in natural populations

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Biological diversity, the richness of variation among individuals, species, and ecological communities, is key to the maintenance of natural ecosystem processes and services. Genetic diversity, the heritable variation among individuals within a species, is the most fundamental level of biological diversity and is important for a species' survival and ability to evolve in the face of environmental change. Genetic diversity in natural populations is threatened by the loss and fragmentation of natural habitats, resulting from human-induced changes to landscapes such as the expansion of settlements, industry, and agriculture. As habitats become smaller and more isolated, the populations of plants and animals that occupy them are prone to lose genetic diversity. It is thus essential to understand how landscape alteration, particularly loss and fragmentation of habitats, affects the genetics of populations. My research program focuses on this problem, and more generally on how genetic variation in natural populations is shaped by characteristics of the surrounding landscape. My lab will examine to what extent the spatial arrangement of habitat in the landscape, as opposed to simply the amount of habitat available, is important in determining genetic variation in a species. This is a long-standing question that is very difficult to address, but using insects that live within the purple pitcher plant, we have developed a unique, natural study system that allows us to do so. We will also examine variation at important genes that are involved in metabolism, building a framework for addressing how adaptive, or functionally important, genetic variation is maintained in real landscapes. Our work can guide the management of landscapes to preserve biological diversity, and improves our understanding of how loss and fragmentation of habitats may affect the ability of populations to adapt to other environmental stresses, such as climate change or invasion by exotic species.