DISSERTATION RESEARCH: Demographic and Biogeographic History of Deciduous Forest Vertebrates of the Central United States

该项目使用DNA变异来研究美国中部两种落叶森林脊椎动物--东部花栗鼠和白足小鼠的进化史。在冰川盛期，美国中部的大片地区被广阔的冰盖所覆盖。目前居住在这些曾经被冰覆盖的地区的许多物种肯定是从冰以外的地区定居下来的。Kenneth Paige博士和Kevin Rowe博士将讲述这些地区的当代人口和社区是如何建立的。遗传变异将表明种群来源的数量和殖民的方向。来自核和线粒体基因组的多个分子标记可以检验关于选择和种群动态在塑造遗传变异中的作用的各种假设。如果不了解生物体如何响应地球的地质和气候历史，就无法了解生物多样性的当代分布；这是生态学和进化生物学的核心问题。该项目的结果将有助于恢复物种如何对已知的气候变化做出反应，以及群落在地质时期是如何聚集的。

This project uses DNA variation to address the evolutionary history of two deciduous forest vertebrates, eastern chipmunks and white-footed mice, in the central US. During glacial maxima large areas of the central US were covered by an extensive ice sheet. Many species that currently inhabit these once ice-covered regions must have colonized from areas beyond the the ice. Dr. Kenneth Paige and Kevin Rowe will address how contemporary populations and communities in these regions were established. Genetic variation will indicate the number of population sources and the direction of colonizations. Multiple molecular markers from the nuclear and mitochondrial genomes can test various hypotheses about the role of selection and population dynamics in shaping genetic variation.The contemporary distribution of biological diversity cannot be understood without knowledge of how organisms responded to the geological and climatic history of Earth; these are central concerns to ecology and evolutionary biology. Results from this project will help recover how species have responded to known climatic changes and how communities are assembled over geological time.