Wildes Los Angeles: Ein landschaftsgenomischer Vergleich multipler Arten am Übergang zwischen dem urbanen und natürlichen Lebensraum
Evolution, Anthropologie
Zusammenfassung der Projektergebnisse
Despite predictions of soaring global urbanization, a mechanistic understanding of how urbanization impacts the evolutionary potential of species now and in the future is lacking. The taxonomically vast research program conducted during the research fellowship at the University of California Los Angeles (UCLA), is arranged around three lines of inference. The Los Angeles Genomics project compares fine-scale, genomic variation of 24 species across a gradient of urbanization in large parts of the Greater Los Angeles metropolitan area. The DNA of more than 5,000 of the 6,556 samples curated for this project have already been sequenced using a reduced-representation library approach (3RAD). The remaining samples are currently being prepared for sequencing in the lab at UCLA and the main results of this project remain to be published. The second project generated and published a macrogenetic dataset that synthesized the published population genetic data available for 448 species in California (CaliPopGen), at orders of magnitude higher species and population density than previously published, macrogenetic datasets. Ongoing analyses of this dataset revealed the importance of including estimates of pairwise genetic differentiation in analyses, as these are better suited to detect impacts of urbanization, which are less pronounced in estimates of genetic diversity. Impacts were strongest in non-native species, which had significantly lower estimates of population genetic differentiation in urban areas than in adjacent wildland areas. Impacts on native species were not significant. The third project, referred to as Hotspots of Urban Biodiversity, focused on the same study extent as the Los Angeles Genomics project and developed models of habitat suitability using species distribution modeling techniques. Making use of observations of 1,023 species across taxonomic groups that were available from the community science platform iNaturalist, it could be demonstrated that levels of biodiversity were highest at the urban-wildland interface, corroborating findings from other studies that quantified species richness across gradients of urbanization. The framework also tested the performance of different modeling approaches that address and correct for the sampling bias inherent to unstructured datasets such as those provided by iNaturalist. Based on Random Forest models, the best-performing modeling strategy identified by the independent test dataset, ongoing research focuses on quantifying the importance of historic land-use practices in explaining patterns of biodiversity distribution and on developing a statistical approach to quantify and test for “urbanization affinity” at the level of the species. Each of these three projects is a novel approach to quantifying the impacts of urbanization and lays the foundation for developing a global predictive framework of evolutionary responses to urbanization.
Projektbezogene Publikationen (Auswahl)
- Beyond the landscape: resistance modelling infers physical and behavioural gene flow barriers to a mobile carnivore across a metropolitan area. Molecular Ecology 29, 466-484
Kimmig S., Beninde J., Brandt M., Schleimer A., Kramer-Schadt S., Hofer H., Börner K., Schulze C., Wittstatt U., Heddergott M., Halczok T., Staubach C., Frantz A.
(Siehe online unter https://doi.org/10.1111/mec.15345) - A brief history of population genetic research in California and an evaluation of its utility for conservation decision-making. Journal of Heredity 113, 604-614
Beninde J., Toffelmier E., Shaffer, H.B.
(Siehe online unter https://doi.org/10.1093/jhered/esac049) - CaliPopGen: A genetic and life history database for the fauna and flora of California. Scientific Data 9, 380
Beninde J., Toffelmier E., Andreas A., Nishioka C., Slay M., Soto A., Bueno J.P., Gonzalez G., Pham H.V., Posta M., Pace J.L., Shaffer H.B.
(Siehe online unter https://doi.org/10.1038/s41597-022-01479-z) - The phylogeny of California, and how it informs setting multispecies conservation priorities. Journal of Heredity 113, 597-603.
Toffelmier E., Beninde J., Shaffer, H.B.
(Siehe online unter https://doi.org/10.1093/jhered/esac045) - Biodiversity in a box: Non-native invertebrates preferentially find refugia in green space management infrastructure across urban Los Angeles. Biological Invasions
Beninde J., Vendetti J.E., Shaffer H.B.
(Siehe online unter https://doi.org/10.1007/s10530-023-03044-0) - Final report on the impact of US Route 101 on genetic structure in six small vertebrate species. Caltrans Report.
Toffelmier E, Beninde J., Shaffer H.B
- Harnessing iNaturalist to quantify hotspots of urban biodiversity: the Los Angeles case study. Frontiers in Ecology and Evolution 11, 983371
Beninde J., Gonzalez G., Delaney T.W., Shaffer H.B.
(Siehe online unter https://doi.org/10.3389/fevo.2023.983371)
