The effects of landscape on polar bear genetic structure The effects of climatic change and other anthropogenic stressors on Arctic wildlife can be studied using landscape genetics, or the integration of population genetic processes (i.e. gene flow, genetic drift) and landscape ecology. Landscape genetic studies have implicated changing habitat and climate as factors affecting population structure, and barriers or conduits to gene flow, including among continuously distributed species such as apex carnivores. Polar bears (Ursus martimus) exhibit contemporary genetic structure falling into diagnosable genetic groups, but also high genetic exchange, attributable to long distance movements and vast home ranges across both terrestrial and marine environments. Sea ice simultaneously facilitates movement and foraging for polar bears, and thus ice variability is predicted to affect distribution and population structure across spatial scales. My research examines the impacts of landscape (e.g. changing sea ice extents) on broad scale polar bear population genetic structure over time, focusing on populations across the Arctic Archipelago. Using decades of geographic and genomic data, I seek to quantify the relative influence of changing sea ice conditions on genetic structure in this region across time.
Comments are closed.
|
Categories
All
Archives
April 2024
|