IntBIO: Integrative Demography: Combining Ecology, Remote Sensing, and Genomics to Understand Population Dynamics

生物多样性对生态系统、生物圈和人类的健康至关重要。然而，生物多样性受到栖息地丧失和气候变化的威胁。栖息地的丧失和气候变化导致了世界各地物种灭绝的加速。在物种内部，种群的灭绝或持续存在决定了一个物种是否会生存下来。因此，了解导致种群持续或灭绝的因素对于预测未来的种群动态和在不断变化的世界中管理生物多样性至关重要。种群持久性是由遗传组成、生态生境、环境胁迫以及这些因素之间的相互作用决定的。 该奖项将整合基因组学，遥感和统计建模方面的进展，以开发新的种群持续性和灭绝预测模型。该项目中创建的模型对于理解种群动态，预测对未来变化的反应以及提供指导实施遗传信息保护策略的工具至关重要。 该项目还包括一个教育组成部分，将为新一代生物学家提供研究和培训机会，使他们做好准备，采用综合方法来了解气候变化的复杂方面及其对生物系统的影响。培养下一代生物学家能够跨领域整合，对于应对气候变化的复杂影响至关重要。为了实现这一目标，在现场生态学，遥感，基因组数据分析，人口建模，科学传播和物质主义的研究生水平的研讨会将开发和教授。为了帮助建立一个包容性的STEM管道，将为新生开发一个基于综合课程的本科生研究经验（CURE），该项目将支持硕士生进行暑期研究，作为推进多样性教育未来教授（ADEPT）计划的一部分。术语在不同和不断变化的环境中的持续存在或灭绝需要整合不同领域的分析技术和数据。进化基因组学可以识别过去的选择目标和当前的适应度决定因素，但尚未有效地与人口统计学相结合，以解释多代人口动态。相反，人口统计建模可以确定生物体建立、生长、生存和繁殖（生活史）的哪些方面对人口增长或下降最关键，但通常不考虑这些适应性成分的基因组决定因素。本研究将使用Streptanthus tortuosus（Mountain Jewelflower）。S.由于其对气候的敏感性，种群内和种群间在性状和生活史时间上的变化，以及目前正在开发的人口统计学和基因组工具，tortuosus是这项研究的理想物种。该项目将：1）使用基因组学来量化个体之间的遗传变异; 2）应用光谱遥感来了解压力源，环境和基因型对植物生理和生长的影响; 3）开发一个统计和人口建模框架来整合这些措施，以了解和预测种群持续存在或灭绝的潜在因素。虽然过去的研究已经单独调查了这些组成部分以及它们之间的一些相互作用，但该奖项探讨了人口动态是否是一种新兴的属性，可以通过开发整合所有这些输入的新人口模型来最好地理解。总之，了解基因、性状、生理和环境的多样性如何影响个体表现和种群动态，将为推动持久性或灭绝的生态和进化过程提供重要的新见解。由此产生的综合人口模型将为保护生物学家和管理人员提供路线图，以使用基因组信息来预测不同保护策略的影响，例如辅助迁移或引入遗传变异，这些策略可以应用于野生，管理，该奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的智力价值进行评估，被认为值得支持和更广泛的影响审查标准。

Biodiversity is critical for the health of ecosystems, our biosphere, and humankind. However, biodiversity is threatened by habitat loss and climate change. Habitat loss and climate change have resulted in the acceleration of species extinctions across the world. Within species, the extinction or persistence of populations determines whether a species will survive at all. Thus, understanding the factors that contribute to population persistence or extinction is critical for predicting future population dynamics and managing biodiversity in a changing world. Population persistence is determined by genetic composition, ecological habitat, environmental stresses, and interactions among these factors. This award will integrate advances in genomics, remote sensing, and statistical modelling to develop new predictive models of population persistence and extinction. The models created in this project will be critical for understanding population dynamics, predicting responses to future change, and providing tools to direct the implementation of genetically-informed conservation strategies. The project also includes an educational component that will provide research and training opportunities for a new generation of biologists to prepare them to incorporate integrative approaches to understand complex aspects of climate change and its effect on biological systems. Training the next generation of biologists to be able to integrate across fields is vital to addressing the complex impacts of climate change. To achieve this, graduate level workshops in Field Ecology, Remote Sensing, Genomic Data Analysis, Demographic Modeling, and Science Communication and Professionalism will be developed and taught. To help build an inclusive STEM pipeline, an integrative Course based Undergraduate Research Experience (CURE) for freshmen will be developed, and the project will support Master’s students for summer research as part of the Advancing Diversity to Educate the Professors of Tomorrow (ADEPT) program.The ability to predict how the genetic composition of populations impacts their long-term persistence or extinction in different and changing environments requires integrating analysis techniques and data across diverse fields. Evolutionary genomics can identify past targets of selection and current determinants of fitness, but has not been effectively integrated with demography to explain multi-generation population dynamics. Conversely, demographic modeling can determine which aspects of organismal establishment, growth, survival, and reproduction (life history) are most critical for population growth or decline, but does not usually consider genomic determinants of these fitness components. Streptanthus tortuosus (Mountain Jewelflower) will be used for this research. S. tortuosus is an ideal species for this research due to its sensitivity to climate, variation within and among populations in traits and life history timing, and demographic and genomic tools currently in development. This project will: 1) use genomics to quantify genetic variation among individuals; 2) apply spectral remote sensing to understand the impact of stressors, the environment, and genotype on plant physiology and growth; and, 3) develop a statistical and demographic modeling framework to integrate these measures to understand and predict the factors underlying population persistence or extinction. While past research has investigated these components individually and some interactions among them, this award explores whether population dynamics is an emergent property that can be best understood by developing new demographic models that integrate all of these inputs. Together, understanding how diversity in genes, traits, physiology, and environment scales to impact individual performance and population dynamics will provide critical new insights into the ecological and evolutionary processes driving persistence or extinction. The resulting integrative demography models will provide a road map for conservation biologists and managers to use genomic information to predict effects of different conservation strategies, such as assisted migration or introducing genetic variation, which can be applied across wild, managed, and agricultural populations.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.