IPY: Genomic-Scale SNP Genotyping of the Arctic Wolf: Ecology and Adaptation over Space and Time

基因组时代已经到来，从这一努力中出现的技术环境应用是众多的。由联邦政府资助的狗基因组计划产生的新分子技术将被应用于狗的近亲灰狼的遗传多样性和适应性问题。过去对狼的遗传研究的效用仅限于大约10个分子标记和来自一个基因的DNA序列数据。新的127，000标记狗基因分型芯片可用于狼，提供比以前研究更多的遗传多样性和迁移模式信息。 重要的是，这些标记中的一些位于影响适应的基因附近，因此可能允许发现影响狼对环境变化的功能和反应的基因。灰狼的遗传变异将从整个北极的六个遗传定义的种群中进行表征，以评估遗传多样性及其如何对应于环境和表型变异。此外，这些基因在过去是如何由于气候波动而发生变化的，将通过对古代狼遗骸的遗传分析来研究。以前对这些古老标本的研究揭示了北美狼的巨大人口流动和独特形式的灭绝。这项研究将是首次将高通量SNP基因分型芯片应用于自然人群，并将为此类分析提供新的分析工具。该项目将揭示狼基因组的生态和遗传重要区域，并深入了解环境变化如何随着时间的推移塑造基因组的变化。 我们分析的独特历史和空间尺度将提高我们对气候变化如何影响遗传变异的理解，并确定面临最大威胁的种群。

The era of the genome has arrived and environmental applications of technology that have emerged from this effort are numerous. New molecular technology resulting from the federally funded dog genome project will be applied to questions about genetic diversity and adaptation of gray wolves, a close relative of the dog. The utility of past genetic studies of wolves has been limited to only about ten molecular markers and DNA sequence data from but one gene. The new 127,000 marker dog genotyping chip can be used on wolves, providing far more information on genetic diversity and migration patterns than previous studies. Critically, some of these markers are located near genes that affect adaptation and thus may permit the discovery of genes that influence function and the response of wolves to environmental change. Genetic variation in gray wolves will be characterized from six genetically defined populations across the Arctic to assess genetic diversity and how it corresponds to environmental and phenotypic variation. Further, how these genes have changed in the past as a result of climate fluctuations will be studied by genetic analysis of ancient wolf remains. Previous research on such ancient specimens has revealed dramatic population turnover and the extinction of a unique form of North American wolf. This study will be one of the first to apply high-throughput SNP genotyping chips to natural populations and will provide new analytical tools for such analyses. This project should reveal ecologically and genetically important regions of the wolf genome, and yield insights into how environmental change has shaped variation in the genome through time. The unique historical and spatial scale of our analysis will improve our understanding of how climate change can affect genetic variation in general and identify populations under the greatest threat.