Descrizione del progetto
Tracciare la diversità genomica in un ambiente in rapida evoluzione
Come risultato del declino della biodiversità dovuto all’intervento dell’uomo nell’ambiente, la diversità genomica delle specie è in costante diminuzione. Il progetto GENDANGERED, finanziato dall’UE, si propone di tracciare i cambiamenti nelle firme di diversità genomica in tutto il genoma dopo il calo della popolazione e di prevedere l’efficacia delle azioni di conservazione nelle condizioni ambientali future. Considerando l’insufficienza di approcci incentrati su porzioni ridotte del genoma e/o quelle limitate all’uso di campioni contemporanei, il progetto utilizzerà un approccio che combina la modellizzazione al computer con dati genomici empirici.
Obiettivo
Biodiversity is declining at alarming rates mostly due to anthropogenic impacts, such as climate and land-use change. This in turn generates reductions in the genomic diversity that species require to persist and adapt in the face of future environmental change. Thus, a thorough understanding of how genomic diversity changes in the face of species’ declines is essential for planning conservation actions. The use of genetics in conservation biology has been extremely valuable in recent decades, and the quick adoption of cutting-edge genomics tools offer new and powerful insights, however, important challenges are yet to be tackled. Crucially, the conditions that lead to genomic diversity decline, and the details of how exactly genomic diversity is lost in response to population decline are currently unknown. Current approaches focusing on reduced portions of the genome, and/or limited to the use of contemporary samples, are not enough. To fill these gaps in knowledge, I propose a plan that combines computer modelling with empirical genomic data to unveil signatures of genomic diversity change over time after recent global environmental change. The proposal consists of three complementary steps. (1) Simulate how genomic diversity declines across the genome according to different demographic models. (2) Obtain the first directly observed estimates of the pace, amount and type of genomic diversity change using whole-genome sequencing from historical (i.e. pre-decline) and contemporary (i.e. post-decline) avian samples. (3) Simulate common conservation practices to develop a predictive modelling tool capable of guiding conservation management in light of future environmental change. Altogether, this approach will allow me to dissect how genetic diversity is lost across the genome after population declines, estimate the pace at which this happens over recent time-scale and generate predictions for the efficacy of conservation actions into future environmental conditions.
Campo scientifico
Programma(i)
Argomento(i)
Meccanismo di finanziamento
MSCA-IF - Marie Skłodowska-Curie Individual Fellowships (IF)Coordinatore
1165 Kobenhavn
Danimarca