Application of population & landscape genomics to federally mandated recovery actions for boreal caribou

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In response to the listing of boreal caribou, Environment Canada has developed a Federal Recovery Strategy (Final 2012) and identified population and distribution objectives for 51 "local populations" across the range. Boreal caribou are of special significance for conservation biologists and policy makers, because about half of the 'local populations' are putatively decreasing or are in one of the "at risk" categories (e.g. 'Threatened', 'Endangered', or 'Special Concern'). Increasing human-induced habitat disturbance and loss and changing predator-prey dynamics have been identified to different degrees as current threats for woodland caribou. Following the broad strategies and general approaches outlined in the Strategy, provincial and territorial governments are now asked to develop range plans and action plans to provide information on measures that will be taken to achieve the recovery of boreal caribou. Two fundamental components of the Recovery Strategy to be characterized are 1) the delineation of local populations, and 2) whether populations are stable, increasing or decreasing in numbers. For caribou, this represents three different biological scales: subspecies and the ecotype, as putative conservation units, or Designatable Units (DUs) as termed in Canada, and local populations. Evolutionary analysis of subspecies will be used to identify evolutionary lineages, the number and extent of glacial refugia, the post-glacial patterns of population expansion and the geographical areas of introgression between lineages. At the ecotype level, two general guidelines must be applied for establishing DU status: distinctiveness and significance, meaning adaptations representing a unique evolutionary legacy of the species. We further envision that the properties of the landscape (i.e. composition and pattern of natural disturbances) will also influence population structure, life history and dispersal behaviour of caribou with different evolutionary histories. In order to assist with the planning efforts, we propose the use of non-invasively collected DNA samples as a highly informative and cost-effective means of acquiring empirical genetic and genomic data for ranges in western Canada, specifically Saskatchewan and Manitoba.