Ecology, evolution, and adaptation in small populations

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Environmental change is a key threat to species and ecosystems, but such changes can act via multiple paths and over evolutionary timescales. As a consequence, society  requires detailed, longterm studies of individuals, populations, communities, and ecosystems to reliably characterize and explain process critical to human life and well-being. Specifically, change in average or extreme climatic conditions can dramatically affect the productivity and persistence of populations essential to life on earth. Change in the ways humans influence habitat type, quality and abundance further affect human and non-human populations alike by enhancing conditions for some species, but often reducing conditions necessary to maintain rare, endagered, and/or culturally important species.  As a consequence, identifying and disentangling such effects in managed and unmanaged bird, mammal, and plant populations has been the focus of my work for 32yrs. Because such factors can drive evolutionary change, as well as the persistence of species, my work included the application of evolutionary theory to the conservation and management of species and ecosystems.  This proposal outline tests of existing theory using two comparative and cross-sectional studies of plant and animal populations monitored for periods of 20-47 yrs, including: 1) the most detailed study of the genetics, demography and individual life history of a free-living bird ever undertaken (song sparrows, Melospiza melodia) and 2) the population genetics and demography of Seablush (Plectritis congesta), an annual plant studied in = 300 populations across its range in BC, WA and OR. My goals in each study are complimentary and include: 1) identifying links between abiotic and biotic drivers of change in population demography, and 2) using this understanding to predict how continued environmental change in future may influence life history evolution, population growth and species range limits. Achieving these goals will contribute fundamentally to our success in managing environmental benefits and services in future, and alos offer extremely rigorous tests of critical predictions in demographic and evolutionary theory applied to wild populations. Because there is little consensus and limited data to resolve such issues, my longterm studies of variation in phenotype, genotype, life history, natural selection, and population growth and persistence offer promising opportunities to graduate students and post-doctoral fellows interested in the interface of fundamental and applied ecology and evolution. My results will be particularly valuable to answering complex questions about the ecology and evolutionary dynamics of free-living species at modest cost and have the potential to dramatically improve the management of rare species that are otherwise impossible to study in detail.