Using molecular genetics to help reconcile food production and biodiversity conservation

人们普遍认为，我们对粮食安全的需要必须与生物多样性的丧失相平衡。诸如田地边缘和甲虫银行等创新试图使农业用地更有利于野生动物，但通常产量较低（单位面积产量），因此需要耕种更多的面积以满足需求。另一种解决方案是将土地分为两个区域--高产密集型农田和零产量的野生动物专用栖息地。关于物种如何应对产量增加的新理论和经验数据允许评估每种策略对种群规模的影响，但要了解这些变化对物种持久性的意义，需要迄今为止无法获得的关于每个物种种群历史的信息。一个物种，现在是，而且一直是罕见的，是不太关心的一个丰富的农业之前，并已下降至今。该项目旨在通过使用系统发育重建来估计一个合理的大套物种的历史（即农业前）人口规模，以解决这一关键的理解差距。它将侧重于鸟类，这是一个已经有人口对农业产量反应数据的群体。根据当前生态和种群趋势（例如，“林地，稳定”，“农田依赖，下降”）对物种进行分组，并通过口腔拭子从每组中采集5个物种。使用下一代测序，将对每个物种的50 - 100个个体进行线粒体DNA测序。然后使用贝叶斯天际线图估计过去120 ky的推断历史种群概况，使用BEAST软件实现，并对每组中的物种进行平均，以提供每个类别的平均轨迹。其结果将是一个图片的鸟类群落如何演变，以应对人为变化的景观。反过来，这将提供一个经验基础，以评估在满足农业和保护的共同需要的替代办法下，未来人口规模变化的可能后果。该项目将把生态学和遗传学与农业技术知识结合起来。在此过程中，它将提供生物分类学和物种生态位生态学方面的培训，生物分类学和物种生态位生态学被生物多样性研究中心确定为脆弱技能。它也是高度跨学科的，并利用新的工作方式，结合鸟类生态学，农业，保护理论，历史植被重建，遗传种群重建的数学方面和下一代测序。为了涵盖这一范围，该项目将由一名遗传学家、一名保护生物学家和一名农业对鸟类影响方面的专家共同监督。阿莫斯教授将担任主要主管。该项目旨在为农业政策提供信息，具体解决在一定的农业产量下，是否应该进行更密集的耕作，以限制粮食生产对生物多样性的影响。

It is widely accepted that our need for food security must be balanced against loss of biodiversity. Innovations such as field margins and beetle banks attempt to make agricultural land more wildlife friendly but typically lower yield (production per unit area), so that more area needs to be farmed in order to meet demand. An alternative solution involves splitting land into two zones - high yield intensive farmland and zero-yielding dedicated habitat for wildlife. New theory and empirical data on how species respond to increasing yields allows the effects of each strategy on population sizes to be evaluated, but understanding what these changes mean for species' persistence requires hitherto unavailable information on each species' population history. A species that is and was always rare is of less concern that one that was abundant before agriculture and has been declining ever since. This project aims to address this key gap in understanding by using phylogenetic reconstruction to estimate historical (i.e. pre-agricultural) population sizes of a reasonably large suite of species. It will focus on birds, as a group for which data on population-level responses to agricultural yields is already available. Species will be grouped according to current ecology and population trend (e.g. 'woodland, stable', 'farmland dependent, declining') and -5 species from each group sampled by taking buccal swabs. Using next generation sequencing, mitochondrial DNA will be sequenced in 50-100 individuals from each species. Inferred historical population profiles for the past 120ky will then be estimated using Bayesian Skyline Plots, implemented using BEAST software, and averaged across species in each group, in order to provide average trajectories for each class. The result will be a picture of how the avifauna community has evolved in response to anthropogenic changes to the landscape. In turn, this will provide an empirical basis for assessing the likely consequences of changes in future population size under alternative approaches for meeting the joint needs of agriculture and conservation. This project will integrate ecology and genetics with knowledge of agricultural techniques. In the process it will provide training in taxonomy and species niche ecology, identified by BBSRC as vulnerable skills. It is also highly interdisciplinary and utilises new ways of working by, combining avian ecology, agriculture, conservation theory, historical vegetation reconstruction, mathematical aspects of genetic population reconstruction and next generation sequencing. To embrace this range, the project will be co-supervised by a geneticist, a conservation biologist and a specialist in the impact of agriculture on avifauna. Prof Amos will act as the primary supervisor. The project aims to inform agricultural policy by specifically addressing the problem of whether, for a given agricultural yield, it is preferable to farm more or less intensively to limit the impact of food production on biodiversity.