Dissertation Research: Exploring Metapopulation Dynamics and Life History Evolution in a Single Versus Multiple Host Landscape

随着人类活动继续破坏自然栖息地，越来越需要能够量化隔离和细分对个人流动性和自然种群动态的影响。我们建议以分叉真菌甲虫（Bolitotherus cornutus）为研究对象，研究生境丧失和破碎化对自然种群的影响。该真菌甲虫在几种陆架真菌上完成了整个生命周期。由于其在美国东部林区的栖息地具有固有的斑块性，叉形真菌甲虫及其真菌宿主是研究寄主质量、寄主存在和寄主空间安排如何影响种群动态和物种持久性的理想系统。我们建议通过捕获标记再捕获技术来研究个体甲虫的运动，以更好地了解斑驳景观中的分散如何影响种群动态。我们还建议研究当只有一个寄主存在与多个寄主存在时，甲虫的局部和区域种群动态是如何变化的。我们将使用经验技术，包括CMR研究和宿主选择的行为研究，结合空间明确的种群模型，以更好地了解栖息地异质性（多个宿主的存在）和几何形状（它们在景观中的斑块排列）如何影响种群持久性。

As human activities continue to fragment natural habitats, the need grows to be able to quantify the impacts of isolation and subdivision on individual mobility and on dynamics of natural populations. We propose to use the forked fungus beetle, Bolitotherus cornutus, which completes its entire lifecycle on a few species of shelf fungi, as a study system for addressing questions related to the effects of habitat loss and fragmentation on natural populations. Because of the inherent patchiness of its habitat in wooded regions of the eastern United States, forked fungus beetles and their fungal hosts are an ideal system for studying how host quality, host presence, and spatial arrangement of hosts in a wooded landscape effect the dynamics of populations as well as the persistence of the species. We propose to study the movement of individual beetles via capture mark recapture techniques to better understand how dispersal in patchy landscapes impacts population dynamics. We also propose to study how local and regional population dynamics of the beetle change when only one of its hosts is present versus when multiple hosts are present. We will use empirical techniques, including the CMR study and behavioral studies of host choice, combined with spatially explicit population models to better understand how habitat heterogeneity (presence of multiple hosts) and geometry (their arrangement of patches in the landscape) impact population persistence.