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，植物需要能够在破碎的景观中移动，以保持遗传多样性并改变其范围。植物及其基因在景观中的移动（植物功能连接）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传播花粉和种子，这些媒介可能以不同的方式对景观做出反应。尽管这种固有的复杂性，植物功能的连接性往往被建模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。 由于每种动物媒介以物种特异性和尺度依赖性的方式对景观做出响应，景观变化对植物功能连接性的影响，以及最终植物种群的生存能力，将取决于不同媒介表现出同步（可能加速植物功能连接性的丧失）或发散响应（可能缓冲植物功能连接性）的程度。计划中的研究旨在将植物功能连接性描述为多个空间尺度上多个扩散过程的联合效应。 该研究项目将培养4名博士。学生和21名本科生（通过本科生暑期研究助学金，B.Sc.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。重点研究两个系统，一个在加拿大，一个在哥斯达黎加，我们将使用生态和分子遗传学方法相结合。学生将接受培训，结合联合收割机田间实验，观察研究和计算机模拟实验，通过修改传粉者和种子传播者的行为来评估景观变化对植物功能连接的净影响。 我们将推动景观遗传学的边界超越典型的单一物种的观察研究，通过进行一个小型的基因流实验和解决营养相互作用。在五年计划之外，这里开发和验证的人口遗传模型将为在不断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提供理想的机会。建立一个框架，了解全球变化如何通过改变生物相互作用，如动物介导的授粉和种子传播，通过生态系统级联的影响，是管理和维护生物多样性在当今迅速变化的景观重要。

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.