GENDANGERED · Measuring GENomic diversity change over time in avian enDANGERED species
Horizon 2020 — Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions
- Duration
- 2020-06-01 → 2022-05-31
- EU contribution
- €219,312
- Participants
- 1
- Scheme
- MSCA-IF
Lines connect the coordinator with its partners.
Results in brief
Measuring GENomic diversity change over time in avian enDANGERED species
The loss of global biodiversity is pushing many species to the brink of extinction. Biodiversity supports all the life processes on Earth, including the healthy ecosystems that we rely on, thus, safeguarding biodiversity is essential for all life forms, including humans. Biodiversity loss starts at the population level when populations of wild species reduce in size, often in direct response to anthropogenic pressures. When populations decline, they lose the genetic diversity needed for the long-term survival and future adaptation of the species. The main objective of GENDANGERED was to elucidate how genetic diversity is lost in response to population decline in several species of endangered birds using a combination of simulation and empirical genomic data. The project focused on two main actions: (1) Obtain empirical estimates of genomic diversity change over time by sequencing whole genomes of historical (museum-preserved, 100+ year old) and contemporary (< 10 years old) samples; (2) developing a modelling framework to perform forward-in-time simulations to capture how genomic diversity changes over time in response to habitat degradation and population decline and make predictions into future conditions.
Data: CORDIS, © European Union
Project objective
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.
Original text from CORDIS.
Participants
- KOBENHAVNS UNIVERSITET · KOBENHAVNCoordinatorDenmark
Links
Data: CORDIS, © European Union