Doctoral Dissertation Research: Identifying and Increasing Landscape Connectivity for Endangered Species

该博士论文研究项目将通过确定人类改造景观中老虎种群的运动走廊，研究人类发展和活动如何在多个尺度上影响食肉动物种群及其持久性。老虎是世界上最濒危的野生猫科动物，全球老虎数量的减少几乎影响到每个国家。影响老虎的活动包括老虎制品的贸易和消费、老虎偷猎、非法伐木、在以前是老虎栖息地的土地上种植的农产品消费、执法疏忽和腐败，以及支持执法的资金不足。全球的发展速度正在加快，从而增加了栖息地砍伐和破碎化的速度。由于野生动物被限制在较小的栖息地，因此需要维持这些碎片之间的移动走廊，以便允许动物继续扩散，从而增强野生动物种群的持久性。该项目将为如何确定连接特定物种不同亚种群的运动走廊提供新的见解，从而促进不同亚种群之间的基因交换，并有助于保持物种的遗传活力。该项目将展示使用图论和连通性分析来确定物种栖息地连通性程度的效用。虽然该项目将重点关注苏门答腊岛老虎栖息地的连通性，但项目方法和研究结果将适用于其他栖息地的野生动物，如叉角羚、佛罗里达豹和东部灰狼。该项目将有助于确定维持濒危物种庞大种群所需的栖息地走廊，从而协助土地管理者和其他人制定有效的战略，既能保护物种，又能促进经济上有益的土地利用。作为博士论文研究改进奖，该奖项还将提供支持，使有前途的学生建立一个强大的独立研究生涯。该博士生将利用遗传学、生态学和地理学的分析工具，通过将遗传相关性数据与景观生态数据和建模相结合，进一步了解人类发展对老虎种群的影响。通过在整个苏门答腊地区收集老虎粪便样本而非侵入性收集的老虎DNA将被识别。研究人员将分析遗传物质，以确定看似互不相连的保护区内的老虎是否能在一起繁殖，从而表明老虎是否会在保护区内穿越多用途景观。景观建模将用于确定潜在的野生动物走廊，然后通过遗传学验证，以确定老虎是否真的利用这些走廊进行运动，特别是如果它们在运动后繁殖。学生将利用卫星项圈提供的数据确定老虎可以穿越哪些人为修改的区域，进一步验证老虎如何在多用途景观中导航，并确定“老虎友好”区域。她将利用景观变化模型来确定未来的老虎活动走廊，以确定需要保护的受威胁走廊，以确保老虎在未来的生存。

This doctoral dissertation research project will examine how human development and activities affect carnivore populations and their persistence at multiple scales by identifying movement corridors for tiger populations in a human-modified landscape. The decline in the global tiger population, the world's most endangered wild cat species, affects nearly every nation. Activities that affect tigers are the trade and consumption of tiger-based products, tiger poaching, illegal logging, consumption of agricultural products grown on land that was previously tiger habitat, negligent and corrupt law enforcement, and inadequate funding to support law enforcement. The rate of development is increasing globally, thus increasing the rate of habitat deforestation and fragmentation. As wildlife is restricted to smaller habitat fragments movement corridors between these fragments need to be maintained in order to permit continued dispersal of animals, thereby enhancing the persistence of wildlife populations. This project will provide new insights regarding how movement corridors can be identified that connect different subpopulations of a specific species, thereby facilitating exchanges of genes among the different subpopulations and help preserve the genetic vitality of the species. The project will demonstrate the utility of using graph theory and connectivity analyses to ascertain the extent of habitat connectivity for a species. Although this project will focus on habitat connectivity of tigers in Sumatra, project approaches and findings will be applicable to wildlife in other habitats, such as pronghorn antelope, Florida panther, and Eastern gray wolf. The project will help to identify habitat corridors needed to maintain robust metapopulations of endangered species, thereby assisting land managers and others to develop effective strategies that can preserve species while helping advance economically beneficial land uses. As a Doctoral Dissertation Research Improvement award, this award also will provide support to enable a promising student to establish a strong independent research career.The doctoral student will employ analytic tools from genetics, ecology, and geography to advance understanding of human development impacts on tiger populations by pairing genetic-relatedness data with landscape ecological data and modeling. Tiger DNA that was non-invasively gathered by collecting tiger fecal samples throughout a Sumatran landscape will be identified. Genetic material will be analyzed to determine whether tigers in seemingly unconnected protected areas can breed together, thus indicating whether tigers cross multiuse landscapes between protected areas. Landscape modeling will be used to identify potential wildlife corridors, which are then validated by genetics to determine whether tigers actually use these corridors for movement, and especially if they breed after movement. The student will identify which human-modified areas tigers can traverse using data provided from satellite collars, further validating how tigers navigate multiuse landscapes and also identifying "tiger-friendly" areas. She will identify predicted future tiger movement corridors using landscape change modeling to identify threatened corridors in need of protection to ensure tiger persistence into the future.