Abstract:Conservation genetics has been focused on the ecological and evolutionary persistence of targets (species or other intraspecific units), especially when dealing with narrow-ranged species, and no generalized solution regarding the problem of where to concentrate conservation efforts for multiple genetic targets has yet been achieved. Broadly distributed and abundant species allow the identification of evolutionary significant units, management units, phylogeographical units or other spatial patterns in genetic… Show more
“…Although methods dealing with continuous genetic variability within populations are difficult to implement, methods based on discrete genetic units are more easily handled (23). Our modularity approach defines discrete evolutionary unitsthe modules-that are amenable to incorporation in conservation planning.…”
Section: Lack Of a Spatial Segregation Of Modules And Different Roles Ofmentioning
Spatial patterns of genetic variation provide information central to many ecological, evolutionary, and conservation questions. This spatial variability has traditionally been analyzed through summary statistics between pairs of populations, therefore missing the simultaneous influence of all populations. More recently, a network approach has been advocated to overcome these limitations. This network approach has been applied to a few cases limited to a single species at a time. The question remains whether similar patterns of spatial genetic variation and similar functional roles for specific patches are obtained for different species. Here we study the networks of genetic variation of four Mediterranean woody plant species inhabiting the same habitat patches in a highly fragmented forest mosaic in Southern Spain. Three of the four species show a similar pattern of genetic variation with well-defined modules or groups of patches holding genetically similar populations. These modules can be thought of as the long-sought-after, evolutionarily significant units or management units. The importance of each patch for the cohesion of the entire network, though, is quite different across species. This variation creates a tremendous challenge for the prioritization of patches to conserve the genetic variation of multispecies assemblages.complex networks | gene flow | habitat fragmentation | population genetics
“…Although methods dealing with continuous genetic variability within populations are difficult to implement, methods based on discrete genetic units are more easily handled (23). Our modularity approach defines discrete evolutionary unitsthe modules-that are amenable to incorporation in conservation planning.…”
Section: Lack Of a Spatial Segregation Of Modules And Different Roles Ofmentioning
Spatial patterns of genetic variation provide information central to many ecological, evolutionary, and conservation questions. This spatial variability has traditionally been analyzed through summary statistics between pairs of populations, therefore missing the simultaneous influence of all populations. More recently, a network approach has been advocated to overcome these limitations. This network approach has been applied to a few cases limited to a single species at a time. The question remains whether similar patterns of spatial genetic variation and similar functional roles for specific patches are obtained for different species. Here we study the networks of genetic variation of four Mediterranean woody plant species inhabiting the same habitat patches in a highly fragmented forest mosaic in Southern Spain. Three of the four species show a similar pattern of genetic variation with well-defined modules or groups of patches holding genetically similar populations. These modules can be thought of as the long-sought-after, evolutionarily significant units or management units. The importance of each patch for the cohesion of the entire network, though, is quite different across species. This variation creates a tremendous challenge for the prioritization of patches to conserve the genetic variation of multispecies assemblages.complex networks | gene flow | habitat fragmentation | population genetics
“…For instance, optimization procedures can be used to find the smallest number of local populations (a network) that it is necessary to represent the species' genetic diversity (assuming, once again, that local populations were sampled throughout species' range) (Diniz-Filho & Telles 2006). This can be applied both to in situ and ex situ conservation, raising interesting possibilities for applying SCP.…”
“…If FBUs are defined at a very fine grain using too powerful techniques that reveal, for example, individual variation, rarity will become highly weighted and goals should be impossible to achieve. As pointed out by Diniz-Filho & Telles (2006), one can ask how to deal with population structure of these molecular variants across different species. Alternatively, genetic diversity within a species can also be a surrogate of biodiversity in general and, indeed, some recent studies have found significant correlations between genetic and species diversity (e.g., see also Sei et al 2009;Struebig et al 2011).…”
Definitions of Biodiversity that encompass multiple levels of the biological hierarchy are common and fulfill theoretical and conservation expectations. However, these definitions are usually not fully operational because these levels are usually analyzed independently. We understand that the difficulties in integrating concepts and methods for distinct "Fundamental Biodiversity Units" (FBUs) for analyses, including genes, haplotypes or neutral molecular variants, species, biomes or ecosystem, arise both because of operational and conceptual difficulties in dealing with the evolutionary continuum and because of 'sociological' issues regarding how different research traditions in Ecology and Evolutionary Biology deal with these different FBUs. Here we explore some common patterns of geographic variation in FBUs at different hierarchical levels, starting from the conceptual view by which evolution give rises to a continuum of biodiversity. We seek for an integrated methodological and conceptual framework to study FBUs, searching for the relationships and commonalities of concepts and methods traditionally developed to evaluate patterns and processes at a given level of the biological hierarchy. We point out several cases where conceptual and theoretical advances have been made by using an integrated perspective based for FBUs, for the analysis of broad-scale gradients in richness, distance decay similarity and systematic conservation planning. We conclude by stating that the recognition of an integrated approach that takes the evolutionary continuum into account may be an important step to mitigate biodiversity loss.
“…Spatial conservation prioritization, for example, has been rarely supported by assessments of local and regional genetic diversity (but see Diniz-Filho & Telles 2006). Different disciplines capable of dealing with ecological and evolutionary processes at different levels of the biological hierarchy must interact to improve conservation strategies (Diniz-Filho et al 2008).…”
Section: Applications Of Molecular Tools For Addressing Conservation mentioning
Mammals are being severely impacted by human activities and currently suffer from population declines and extinctions, loss of phylogenetic and functional diversity, and erosion of genetic diversity. Under this scenario, complementary approaches to minimize the loss of diversity are of paramount importance. Here we present how methods to identify threats, population viability, genetic diversity, and reserve selection could be integrated to improve the effectiveness of mammal conservation strategies both today and in the future. We discuss how this integration can fill current gaps in our scientific knowledge aiming at the development of more comprehensive conservation strategies for mammals. Lastly, we envisage that networks of scientific collaboration are obviously needed, so scientists from different but complementary fields could foster discussions and integrate their views and approaches. This would ultimately allow science, management and policy-making to advance together.
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