Collaborative Research: ORCC:RUI: Integrating evolutionary and migratory potential of Chamaecrista fasciculata into forecasts of range-wide population dynamics under climate change

成功保护全球生物多样性需要生物学家准确预测未来气候条件下物种灭绝的风险。然而，目前的模型往往对植物和动物的生物学做出简化的假设。例如，一些模型假设，当情况并非如此时，一个物种可以很容易地在景观中迁徙，或者当这实际上是一种可能性时，一个物种不能迅速进化到环境变化。我们的跨学科团队将研究植物物种的生物学，以确定研究人员和自然资源保护者需要什么数据来预测气候变化将如何影响自然环境中植物的灭绝风险。我们将使用在天然草原上常见和广泛的植物--山豌豆(Chamaecrista Fasculata)来确定改善生态模型以进行保护规划所需的数据类型。我们将评估种群间的遗传差异和基因流动速率，并估计这些种群应对气候变化的进化能力，以确定最好地描述或预测新气候条件下变化速率的模型。在与佐治亚州植物保护联盟和东南草原倡议的合作下，我们将应用所学知识开发一系列工具，从业者可以使用这些工具来预测气候变化下濒危草原物种的灭绝风险。这项工作将显著提高我们保护美国东南部和世界各地栖息地生物多样性的能力。同一物种范围内的种群在气候变化下的迁徙和适应潜力各不相同。大多数旨在预测气候变化下种群持久性的方法都简化了关于可塑性、适应和基因流动的假设，这些假设在自然系统中经常被违反。我们结合进化生物学、田间生态学和种群基因组学的方法来预测气候变化下在广泛分布的原生豆科牧草(Chamaecrista Fasculata)上的范围内的动态。我们的研究使用历史基因流动的种群基因组估计器来检验气候变化下种群的迁移潜力。为了评估适应潜力，我们将把来自12个种群的父系半同胞家庭暴露在当代气候中，并在整个范围内的普通花园中模拟气候变化。最后，我们将使用不同的模型来预测气候变化下的生态进化动态，这些模型在纳入物种出现、适应气候的加性遗传变异、特征表达、序列变异和基因流动的数据的程度上有所不同。我们的工作将为在不太容易操纵的系统中预测范围内对气候变化的反应提供一个强大的框架。我们将与佐治亚州植物保护联盟和东南草原倡议的保护从业者合作，制作风险评估工具，预测濒危植物物种在气候变化下的范围动态。在工作坊中，我们将讨论我们的进展，并为学员提供与自然保护从业者建立联系的机会。PIS将招募、培训和指导历史上被边缘化背景的人口基因组学、数量遗传学、数据分析和生态建模方面的学者。这一奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的智力优势和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

Successful conservation of global biodiversity requires that biologists accurately predict the risk of species extinction under future climate conditions. However, current models often make simplifying assumptions about the biology of plants and animals. For example, some models assume that a species can easily migrate through the landscape when this is not the case, or that a species is not able to evolve rapidly to environmental change when this is actually a possibility. Our interdisciplinary team will study the biology of a plant species to determine what data researchers and conservationists need to predict how climate change will influence extinction risk for plants in the natural environment. We will use the partridge pea (Chamaecrista fasciculata), a common and widespread plant in natural grasslands, to identify the type of data needed to improve ecological models for conservation planning. We will evaluate genetic differences and rates of gene flow among populations and estimate these populations’ ability to evolve in response to climate change to identify models that best describe or forecast rates of change under new climate conditions. In collaboration with the Georgia Plant Conservation Alliance and the Southeastern Grasslands Initiative, we will apply what we learn to develop a series of tools that practitioners can use to predict extinction risks under climate change for at-risk grassland species. This work will significantly improve our ability to protect biodiversity in the southeastern U.S. and in habitats around the world.Populations across the range of a species vary in their migratory and adaptive potential under climate change. Most approaches aimed at predicting population persistence under climate change make simplifying assumptions about plasticity, adaptation, and gene flow that are commonly violated in natural systems. We combine approaches from evolutionary biology, field ecology, and population genomics to forecast range-wide dynamics under climate change in a broadly distributed native legume (Chamaecrista fasciculata). Our studies examine the migratory potential of populations under climate change using population genomic estimators of historical gene flow. To evaluate adaptive potential, we will expose paternal half-sib families from 12 populations to contemporary climates and simulated climate change in common gardens across the range. Finally, we will forecast eco-evolutionary dynamics under climate change using models that differ in the degree to which they incorporate data on species occurrence, additive genetic variance in fitness in response to climate, trait expression, sequence variation, and gene flow. Our work will provide a robust framework for predictions of range-wide responses to climate change in systems that are less amenable to manipulation. We will collaborate with conservation practitioners in the Georgia Plant Conservation Alliance and Southeastern Grasslands Initiative to produce risk assessment tools that project range dynamics under climate change for endangered plant species. In workshops, we will discuss our progress and provide opportunities for our trainees to forge connections with conservation practitioners. The PIs will recruit, train, and mentor scholars from historically marginalized backgrounds in population genomics, quantitative genetics, data analysis, and ecological modeling.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.