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

我以前对狼的研究和我实验室对驯鹿的初步发现表明，驯鹿、麋鹿和狼等高度脆弱的生物可能是识别进化重要单位的理想研究物种。由于地形障碍对生殖隔离的影响是有限的，在这些物种中，分化的其他影响可以进行研究，包括一套特征，也可能是重要的保护目的。我将与一名博士、两名硕士生和一名技术人员一起，以驯鹿为模式物种，研究冰川后事件、景观特征和近期基因流对北方物种分化的影响。我们还将驯鹿数据与麋鹿和狼的现有数据集（分别是过去的NSERC和NSF项目）进行比较。该方案旨在通过使用驯鹿、麋鹿和狼的GPS信息，并通过资源选择功能描述栖息地的适宜性，来绘制一幅多变量摩擦图（代表在景观中移动的成本）。从理论的角度来看，我们将有助于综合多变量模型来预测依赖于栖息地因素和分类地位的个体驯鹿对的遗传相关性水平。这是一种新的分析方法（承认需要从人口水平的分析转移），将允许测试地理距离对遗传距离的影响，并将其与地形障碍的影响和通过景观移动的现实成本进行比较。该研究计划将在加拿大落基山脉和邻近地区的样品沿着整个冰后期驯鹿的分布，以确定苔原/林地渗入的程度，可能是一个冰后期事件（信息目前在我的实验室，但只有南落基山脉）。因此，这项新的研究计划有助于分子数据，并将其与现有的生态数据相结合，目的是了解驯鹿（即敏感和受威胁的物种）和麋鹿或狼的分化空间格局，采用原始方法，可以作为一般陆地物种的模型方法。

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.