Collaborative Research: A Landscape Resistance Mapping Approach to Understanding Species Invasion Patterns

全球自然群落的变化正在威胁世界范围内的生物多样性和生态系统结构。大量物种通过国际贸易和人口运输在全球范围内运输。非本土物种入侵了包括自然区域、农业景观和用材林在内的无数栖息地，改变了自然生态群落，减少了生态系统服务，并造成了每年估计高达数十亿美元的经济损失。随着入侵物种在更大范围内蔓延，损害和成本进一步增加。了解促进和防止范围扩大的条件对于预测入侵物种的传播和为物种保护工作提供信息都是至关重要的。在物种范围的边缘，自然和人工协助的迁徙与当地种群动态以复杂的方式相互作用，以确定传播动态。这个项目的核心是一个基本问题：物种范围扩大的驱动力是什么，以及多个过程如何相互作用来形成入侵模式？研究人员将通过研究臭名昭著的北美入侵者吉普赛飞蛾的入侵模式来解决这个问题。吉普赛蛾周期性地使大片阔叶林落叶，对生态群落、木材生产和娱乐活动产生负面影响。吉普赛蛾入侵前线从明尼苏达州延伸到北卡罗来纳州，并以平均每年约10公里的速度扩张。该项目填补的知识空白将为管理和保护战略提供依据，最终降低非本土入侵者的环境和经济成本，并保持美国的生物多样性。研究人员将使用一个详尽的时空数据集，每年量化2000公里长的吉普赛蛾边缘。该项目将尖端景观遗传学与当地种群动态的详细分析相结合，为用于阐明当地种群过程、景观连通性和该物种的人为运动如何相互作用以驱动传播模式的模型模拟提供信息。这项研究测试了与三个主要目标相关的假设：1)量化景观特征和空间协方差对低密度种群动态的影响，2)使用空间遗传谱系来了解景观特征和人类交通模式如何影响遗传结构和运动，以及3)整合人口和遗传信息，通过在人口动态和运动参数的分层地图上模拟入侵，确定景观特征、人类运动和当地人口过程如何驱动大规模入侵模式。

Global changes to natural communities are threatening biodiversity and ecosystem structure worldwide. Large numbers of species are transported globally through international trade and human traffic. Non-native species invade myriad habitats that include natural areas, agricultural landscapes, and timber forests, altering natural ecological communities, reducing ecosystem services, and causing economic losses that are estimated at up to billions of dollars annually. Damages and costs increase further as invasive species spread across larger regions. Understanding the conditions that facilitate and prevent range expansion are critical to both predicting the spread of invasive species and informing species conservation efforts. At species range edges, natural and human-assisted movement interplay with local population dynamics in complex ways to determine spread dynamics. This project centers on a fundamental question: What are the drivers of species range expansion and how do multiple processes interact to shape invasion patterns? Researchers will address this question by studying the invasion pattern of an infamous North American invader, the gypsy moth. The gypsy moth periodically defoliates large tracts of hardwood forest, negatively affecting ecological communities, timber production, and recreational activities. The gypsy moth invasion front stretches from Minnesota to North Carolina and is expanding at an average rate of approximately 10 kilometers per year. Knowledge gaps filled by this project will inform management and conservation strategies to ultimately reduce the environmental and economic costs of non-native invaders and maintain biodiversity in the United States.The researchers will use an exhaustive spatiotemporal dataset that annually quantifies the 2000 km long range edge of the gypsy moth. This project combines cutting-edge landscape genetics with detailed analyses of local population dynamics to inform model simulations used to elucidate how local population processes, landscape connectivity, and anthropogenic movement of this species interact to drive spread patterns. The proposed research tests hypotheses associated with three main objectives: 1) quantify effects of landscape features and spatial covariance on the dynamics of low-density populations, 2) use spatial genetic lineages to understand how landscape features and human traffic patterns affect genetic structure and movement, and 3) integrate demographic and genetic information to determine how landscape features, human movement, and local population processes drive large-scale invasion patterns by simulating invasion on layered maps of population dynamic and movement parameters.