The role of landscape structure in shaping genetic variation in natural populations

生物多样性，即个体、物种和生态群落之间变异的丰富性，是维持自然生态系统过程和服务的关键。遗传多样性是物种内个体之间的可遗传变异，是生物多样性的最基本层面，对于物种的生存和面对环境变化的进化能力非常重要。自然种群的遗传多样性受到自然栖息地的丧失和碎片化的威胁，自然栖息地的丧失和碎片化是人类引起的景观变化，如定居点、工业和农业的扩张。随着栖息地变得更小和更孤立，占据栖息地的动植物种群很容易失去遗传多样性。因此，必须了解景观变化，特别是栖息地的丧失和碎片化，如何影响种群的遗传。我的研究项目集中在这个问题上，更广泛地讲，自然种群中的遗传变异是如何由周围景观的特征塑造的。我的实验室将研究景观中栖息地的空间安排，而不仅仅是可用栖息地的数量，在多大程度上决定一个物种的遗传变异。这是一个长期存在的问题，很难解决，但利用生活在紫色猪笼草内的昆虫，我们开发了一种独特的、自然的研究系统，使我们能够做到这一点。我们还将研究涉及新陈代谢的重要基因的变异，建立一个框架，解决如何在真实景观中保持适应性或功能重要性的遗传变异。我们的工作可以指导景观管理以保护生物多样性，并提高我们对栖息地的丧失和碎片化如何影响种群适应其他环境压力的能力的理解，例如气候变化或外来物种的入侵。

Biological diversity, the richness of variation among individuals, species, and ecological communities, is key to the maintenance of natural ecosystem processes and services. Genetic diversity, the heritable variation among individuals within a species, is the most fundamental level of biological diversity and is important for a species' survival and ability to evolve in the face of environmental change. Genetic diversity in natural populations is threatened by the loss and fragmentation of natural habitats, resulting from human-induced changes to landscapes such as the expansion of settlements, industry, and agriculture. As habitats become smaller and more isolated, the populations of plants and animals that occupy them are prone to lose genetic diversity. It is thus essential to understand how landscape alteration, particularly loss and fragmentation of habitats, affects the genetics of populations. My research program focuses on this problem, and more generally on how genetic variation in natural populations is shaped by characteristics of the surrounding landscape. My lab will examine to what extent the spatial arrangement of habitat in the landscape, as opposed to simply the amount of habitat available, is important in determining genetic variation in a species. This is a long-standing question that is very difficult to address, but using insects that live within the purple pitcher plant, we have developed a unique, natural study system that allows us to do so. We will also examine variation at important genes that are involved in metabolism, building a framework for addressing how adaptive, or functionally important, genetic variation is maintained in real landscapes. Our work can guide the management of landscapes to preserve biological diversity, and improves our understanding of how loss and fragmentation of habitats may affect the ability of populations to adapt to other environmental stresses, such as climate change or invasion by exotic species.