Description du projet
Ours des cavernes: tester les causes de leur extinction
Les ours des cavernes habitaient l’Europe et l’Asie il y a des milliers d’années. En se concentrant sur ces espèces d’ours préhistoriques, le projet RESOURCEFUL, financé par l’UE, étudiera l’effet de l’interaction entre le comportement et la structure de la population sur le risque d’extinction chez les espèces qui dépendent de ressources géographiquement fixes. Pour ce faire, il associera la modélisation théorique des populations à la paléogénomique. Les travaux du projet conduiront au développement d’un modèle informatique spatialement explicite des populations d’ours des cavernes et d’un échantillon de génomes d’ours des cavernes roumains contemporains, ce qui permettra de mieux comprendre l’effet de la concurrence humaine pour l’occupation des grottes sur l’extinction de cette espèce.
Objectif
This MSC Action will investigate the interplay of behaviour, climate, and human pressure on species extinction, using a highly interdisciplinary approach uniting theoretical population modelling with palaeogenomics. This MSC Action will investigate the interplay of behaviour and population structure on extinction risk in species that rely on geographically fixed resources. It will focus on long extinct cave bears by utilising a highly interdisciplinary approach uniting theoretical population modelling with palaeogenomics to test the causes of their extinction. The host organisation, Prof. Manicas UCAM Group, is a world-leading research group in population genetics and modelling. I will be provided with training and development opportunities that allow me to build a spatially explicit computational model of cave bear populations that use multiple caves for hibernation. Development of my existing knowledge of palaeogenomics during secondment in Dr. Barlows TNTU Lab will allow me to assemble a population level sample of contemporaneous Romanian cave bear genomes to further refine the model based on empirical data. Finally, this refined cave bear population model will allow, for the first time, a detailed and statistically robust assessment of the effect of human competition for caves on cave bear extinction. This MSC Action provides numerous opportunities for my training and personal development, by locating myself in the world-leading UCAM Group, attendance of five formal training courses, and further opportunities during the secondment and visits to other labs. It will result in internationally significant research outputs that will be disseminated to the scientific community via publications and presentations, as well as to different target audiences via public engagement, media and teaching activities. Moreover, it will provide numerous vital steps towards my ultimate career goal of establishing a world-leading research group within the field of palaeogenomics
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Régime de financement
MSCA-IF - Marie Skłodowska-Curie Individual Fellowships (IF)Coordinateur
CB2 1TN Cambridge
Royaume-Uni