The endemic Giant Molerat as synanthropic landscape engineer: past and present population dynamics and their link to vegetation patterns and human land-use on the Bale Mountains

新项目对RU总体目标的贡献，非洲高山生态系统的环境历史重建，是解开地方性的巨型Molerat（GMR - Tachyoryctes macrocephalus）作为自然生物景观工程师在贝尔山脉人为改造的作用。为了实现这一目标，需要对GMR进行全面和空间明确的生态和遗传分析。因此，该项目的目标是为应对这一挑战做出贡献，首先是对整个Bale山脉的GMR分布进行详细的实地调查。以便评估它们的生态和目前的种群遗传结构。这项工作将与“基于地质雷达的土丘量化;湿度和土地使用梯度;制定排序方法”项目和“植被特征”项目密切合作进行。其次，我们将实地观察GMR洞穴和其他环境数据的遥感信息，以高档GMR的生态系统工程作用和人口结构的景观尺度。在RU的第1阶段期间对GMR骨骼的鉴定开辟了将现存群体遗传分析与古代DNA（aDNA）分析进行比较的可能性。然后，作为第三个目标，我们将比较当前和古代的遗传数据的GMR和他们的洞穴重建景观的历史。总之，我们将升级GMR的作用，生态系统工程师的景观尺度，并确定现在和过去的人口动态GMR在非洲高山生态系统和上杜鹃花科带，以解决人类的存在在贝尔山脉。

The contribution of the novel project to the overarching aim of the RU, the reconstruction of the environmental history of the afro-alpine ecosystem, is to disentangle the role of the endemic Giant Molerat (GMR - Tachyoryctes macrocephalus) as a natural biotic landscape engineer from anthropogenic transformation in the Bale Mountains. To achieve this, comprehensive and spatially explicit ecological and genetic analyses of the GMR are needed. The goal of the project is therefore to contribute to this challenge, first, by detailed field surveys on the distribution of GMRs across the Bale Mountains. In order to assess their ecology and current population genetic structure. This will be done in close cooperation with the project "geo-radar-based quantification of mounds; humidity and land-use gradients; development of sequencing Approach" and the project "vegetation characteristics". Second, we will link field observations to remote sensing information on GMR burrows and other environmental data in order to upscale the GMR's ecosystem engineering role and population structure to the landscape scale. Excavations of GMR bones during Phase 1 of the RU open up the possibility to compare extant population genetic analyses with ancient DNA (aDNA) analyses. Then, as a third aim, we will compare current and ancient genetic data of GMRs and their burrows to reconstruct the landscape history. In summary, we will upscale the GMR's role as ecosystem engineer to the landscape scale and determine present and past population dynamics of GMRs in the afro-alpine ecosystem and the upper Ericaceous Belt to resolve the presence of humans in the Bale Mountains.