Undergraduate Honors Thesis

 

Genetic inference of population dynamics in the American pika: Identifying appropriate scales of inference within a region of declining survival Public Deposited

https://scholar.colorado.edu/concern/undergraduate_honors_theses/d791sg73b
Abstract
  • How species will respond to the changing climate is poorly understood, but will become increasingly important to understand as the climate changes further. One way to predict the eventual effects of climate change on many species is to study early effects of contemporary climate change on a model species that is known to be climate-sensitive. The American Pika (Ochotona princeps) typically occurs in alpine habitats and has a thermally sensitive physiology, making it an ideal model that is already being widely studied for these effects. This study used SNPs (Single Nucleotide Polymorphisms) from RADseq (Restriction site Associated DNA sequencing), a novel genetic analysis technique, to analyze the genetic composition of a regional pika population in the Colorado Rocky Mountains predicted to have three subpopulations. Using this method of analysis, the pika in this region were found to be genetically similar with little differentiation between subpopulations. For this population heterozygosity was generally low, but there were differences in levels of inbreeding between individuals and some subpopulations. These results show high levels connectivity under current conditions, and variable dispersal at the local level. This study also highlights the differences between data from SNPs and microsatellites used in previous studies, and provides a baseline for the comparison of future studies using SNPs from RADseq.
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Date Awarded
  • 2016-01-01
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Dernière modification
  • 2019-12-02
Resource Type
Déclaration de droits
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