Landscape constraints on plant functional connectivity as a multi-scale process

面对不断变化的全球气候和土地利用，植物需要能够在支离破碎的地貌中移动，以保持遗传多样性并改变它们的范围。植物及其基因在景观中的移动(植物功能连通性)主要通过授粉和种子传播发生。许多植物依靠多种动物媒介来运输花粉和种子，这些媒介可能会以不同的方式对景观做出反应。尽管有这种内在的复杂性，植物功能的连通性通常被模拟为一个单一的空间过程，这可能无法解释例如罕见的长距离扩散事件。 由于每个动物载体以物种特有和尺度依赖的方式对景观做出反应，景观变化对植物功能连通性的影响，以及最终植物种群的生存能力，将取决于不同载体显示的同步程度(可能加速植物功能连通性的丧失)或不同的反应(可能缓冲植物功能连通性)。这项计划中的研究旨在将植物功能连通性描述为多个空间尺度上的多个扩散过程的联合作用。 本研究计划将培养4名博士生和21名本科生(通过本科生暑期研究助学金，理学学士。论文，研究机会计划)在我的空间生态学和景观遗传学实验室。聚焦于两个研究系统，一个在加拿大，一个在哥斯达黎加，我们将使用生态学和分子遗传学相结合的方法。学生将接受培训，将实地实验、观测研究和计算机模拟实验结合起来，通过改变授粉者和种子传播者的行为来评估景观变化对植物功能连通性的净影响。 我们将通过进行景观规模的基因流动实验和解决营养相互作用，将景观遗传学的边界推向单一物种的典型观测研究。除了五年计划之外，这里开发和验证的人口-遗传模型将提供一个理想的机会，在变化的景观中相互作用的物种的背景下测试生态进化理论。建立一个框架，通过改变生物相互作用，如动物介导的授粉和种子传播，了解全球变化的影响如何通过生态系统级联，对于在当今快速变化的景观中管理和维持生物多样性非常重要。

In the face of changing global climate and land use, plants need to be able to move across fragmented landscapes to maintain genetic diversity and to shift their ranges. The movement of plants and their genes across a landscape (plant functional connectivity) happens largely through pollination and seed dispersal. Many plants rely on multiple animal vectors to transport pollen and seeds, and these vectors may respond to the landscape in different ways. Despite this inherent complexity, plant functional connectivity is often modeled as a single spatial process, which may fail to explain e.g. rare long-distance dispersal events. As each animal vector responds to the landscape in a species-specific and scale-dependent way, the consequences of landscape change for plant functional connectivity, and ultimately plant population viability, will depend on the degree to which different vectors show synchronized (potentially accelerating the loss of plant functional connectivity) or divergent responses (potentially buffering plant functional connectivity). The planned research aims to characterize plant functional connectivity as the joint effect of multiple dispersal processes at multiple spatial scales. This research program will train four Ph.D. students and 21 undergraduate students (through Undergraduate Summer Research Assistantships, B.Sc. theses, Research Opportunity Program) in my spatial ecology and landscape genetics lab. Focusing on two study systems, one in Canada and one in Costa Rica, we will use a combination of ecological and molecular genetic approaches. Students will be trained to combine field experiments, observational studies and computer simulation experiments to assess the net effects of landscape change on plant functional connectivity through modifying the behavior of pollinators and seed dispersers. We will push the boundaries of landscape genetics beyond typical observational studies of single species by conducting a landscape-scale gene flow experiment and addressing trophic interactions. Beyond the five-year program, the demographic-genetic model developed and validated here will provide an ideal opportunity for testing eco-evolutionary theory in the context of interacting species in changing landscapes. Developing a framework for understanding how the effects of global change cascade through ecosystems by altering biotic interactions, such as animal-mediated pollination and seed dispersal, is important for managing and maintaining biodiversity in today's rapidly changing landscapes.