Demography, movement dynamics and population structure of bats

了解种群生物学对于管理、监测和保护生物多样性至关重要。尽管如此，生物学家在准确描述分布和其他动态(如大小等)方面遇到了巨大的困难。在许多种群中。理解种群生物学的关键是定量地理解进化过程，如扩散和基因流动，这些过程塑造了种群结构。我的研究计划的目标将是描述种群结构的特征，并调查导致这种结构的潜在进化过程，这是一种经常被误解但却很重要的哺乳动物群体-蝙蝠。北方长耳小棕蝠是北美洲分布广泛的物种。在夏天，这两个物种的雌性都会在孕期群体中栖息，而雄性通常会单独栖息。在秋天，它们迁徙到洞穴和矿坑，在那里交配和越冬。这种一般生活史是许多温带蝙蝠的典型，因此这个项目将提供对许多其他物种生物学的洞察。我将使用现场(包括捕获、标记和重新定位)和分子技术来表征种群结构。最后，我将能够根据经验证据明确定义蝙蝠种群的空间和时间方面。

Understanding population biology is crucial for managing, monitoring and conserving biodiversity. Despite this, biologists have tremendous difficulties accurately characterizing distribution and other dynamics (e.g., size, etc.) of many populations. Key to understanding population biology is a quantitative understanding of evolutionary processes such as dispersal and gene flow which shape population structure. The objective of my research program will be to characterize population structure and investigate the underlying evolutionary processes that lead to this structure in an often misunderstood, but important, group of mammals- the bats. The northern long-eared and little brown bats are widely-distributed North American species. In the summer, females of both species roost in maternity colonies and males typically roost alone. In the fall they move to caves and mines where they copulate and hibernate over-winter. This general life history is typical of many temperate zone bats and therefore this program will provide insight into the biology of many other species. I will use field (including trapping, tagging and re-locating) and molecular techniques to characterize population structure. At the end, I will be able to explicitly define, based on empirical evidence, the spatial and temporal aspects of bat populations.