| 1. |
- Halvarsson, Peter
(författare)
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Host-Parasite Interactions in Natural Populations
- 2016
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- Parasitism is one of the most common ways of living and it has arised in many taxa. Parasites feed and live inside or on their hosts resulting in both long and short term consequences for the host. This thesis is exploring the phenotypic and genotypic effects of animals living with parasitic infections. I have been studying three different parasite groups and their associated host species: the great snipe, a lekking freshwater wader bird that migrates between Africa and Northern Europe; the tree sparrow, a stationary passerine found close to human settlements and lastly the water vole, a large rodent living in riparian habitats.Avian malaria is one of the most commonly studied parasites affecting birds. Atoxoplasma, an intestinal protozoan parasite is less studied but is thought to be endemic in free-ranging birds. Given the freshwater habitat great snipes inhabit, a prevalence of 30% avian malaria infections is not high and that the prevalence fluctuated among years. Sequencing of the avian malaria cytochrome b gene revealed that parasites are similar to avian malaria parasites found in African birds suggesting that they were infected on the wintering grounds in Africa. Tree sparrows had few malaria infected individuals, a result that is consistent with other studies of stationary birds at high latitudes. Atoxoplasma infections were common in tree sparrows and capture-recapture analyses show decreased survival in infected compared to uninfected birds and signs of lower mating success among infected.Genetic analyses comparing the transcriptome between mated and unmated great snipe males revealed that the genotype is important for mating success and health status for some of the expressed genes. That variations in some of these genes are involved in maintaining a good health status and mating success supports handicap models for sexual selection in this lek mating system.The major histocompatibility complex (MHC) is a part of the immune system and it contains genes involved in immune response. In water voles, a number of new MHC alleles were identified. Based on their in silico phenotype they were grouped into supertypes to facilitate studies on how helminth infections affect the MHC diversity in the water voles. Some of these MHC supertypes provided resistance to one helminth species, but the same supertype caused the opposite effect for other helminth parasites. Overall, parasites are a driving force for maintaining genetic diversity and parasite infections lowers survival rate, which would lead to a lower lifetime breeding success.
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| 2. |
- Halvarsson, Peter, 1976-
(författare)
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On the Effects of Blood Parasites in Wild Birds
- 2013
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Licentiatavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- Coccidian and haemoatozoan parasites are commonly occurring endo-parasites in wild birds and prevalence can vary among species and populations. In addition to prevalence studies, parasites are often used to investigate effects on life history traits. Findings from these studies are not unambiguous, as correlations with many life history traits are absent, although common findings include negative effects on survival and body condition. In this thesis, coccidian and blood parasite prevalence and their effect on survival were investigated using a PCR approach in eleven popu-lations of great snipes (Gallinago media) and in two populations of tree sparrows (Passer montanus). In great snipes and tree sparrows we investigated the parasites Plasmodium/Haemoproteus (P/H) and Leucocytozoon and in tree sparrows also Atoxoplasma.In Great snipes the overall adult prevalence was 29.9%. At the main study site, Gåvålia, Norway, a decrease in P/H prevalence with age was found and infected birds had a lower mean age. Two not mutually exclusive alternative explanations are that infected young birds may have a higher mortality and/or that individual birds can purge the infection. There was a variation in prevalence among the sample years in Gåvålia and a difference among populations. Finding fluctuations among year demonstrates the need of long term data to study parasite prevalence variation. In tree sparrows the Haematozoan prevalence was 5.9% in adults and 56.5% in Atoxoplasma. By using recapture models to estimate apparent survival rates with the software MARK 4.2, it was suggested that parasite infections may have an impact on the apparent survival rate in one of the populations. Since condition and breeding performance appeared unaffected, it can be hypothesised that this pattern may indicate that chronic infections generally do not appear to impair birds, although subclinical infections may occasionally develop into disease with fatal outcome.
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| 3. |
- Johansson, Jenny, 1977-
(författare)
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Drivers of polymorphism dynamics in pygmy grasshoppers
- 2012
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- In this thesis, I used colour polymorphism in pygmy grasshoppers as a model system to study the influence of selection, developmental plasticity, mating behaviour and gene flow on patterns of phenotypic and genetic diversity within and among populations in changing environments.Data for more than 5,000 individuals collected from natural populations showed that the incidence of black (melanic) pygmy grasshoppers was higher in burnt than in non-burnt areas, and rapidly declined over time within populations in post-fire environments. A common garden experiment confirmed that differences among populations were genetically determined. A split brood experiment further uncovered no developmental plasticity in response to rearing substrate, but a high resemblance between mothers and their offspring thus indicating that colour morphs are under strong genetic control.To investigate the role of polyandry, I experimentally mated virgin females to multiple males; genotyped families using microsatellite markers developed for this purpose, and demonstrated that polyandrous females can produce offspring sired by different males. Analysis of families produced by females collected from a natural population confirmed that multiple paternities can increase colour morph diversity among half-siblings in the wild. Analysis of 130 AFLP (Amplified Fragment Length Polymorphism) markers in individuals from 5 localities uncovered two distinct gene clusters, as well as high genetic diversity within and significant divergence among populations within each cluster.My studies of colour polymorphism dynamics demonstrate an important role of population differentiation and rapid adaptive evolution in response to selection in heterogeneous environments, indicate limited effects of plasticity and gene flow, and implicate multiple mating as promoting diversity within populations in this pygmy grasshopper system.
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| 4. |
- Rudh, Andreas
(författare)
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Aposematism, Crypsis and Population Differentiation in the Strawberry Poison Frog
- 2012
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- Evolutionary transitions between the two major predator avoidance strategies aposematism and crypsis are expected to be associated with changes in many important traits of animals. However, empirical studies on populations experiencing ongoing or recent transitions between these strategies are rare. This thesis investigates the co-evolution of traits among populations of the Strawberry poison frog D.pumilio in Bocas del Toro, Panama. I found that all investigated populations were genetically distinct but that colour and pattern did not correlate with genetic or geographic distance, which suggests that selection needs to be invoked to explain the observed variation. Based on the chromatic contrast between frog dorsal colour and the natural habitat substrates used by the frogs, the populations were defined as bright or dull coloured. I found that frogs from bright coloured populations were larger. This is expected if aposematism is enhanced by large signals while crypsis is enhanced by small size. Further, individuals from bright coloured populations had a coarser black dorsal pattern, which is expected if crypsis is impaired by a bold pattern. The importance of pattern coarseness was confirmed by an avian detection experiment showing that coarse patterned dark green prey were more easily detected than dark green prey without pattern or with fine pattern. I put forward the hypothesis that enhanced protection, gained by aposematism, may affect behaviours that influence dispersal and pairing patterns. Indeed, males from bright coloured populations displayed at more exposed sites and showed a tendency to be more explorative and aggressive. In summary, my results show that the bright and dull coloured populations most likely represent an aposematic and a cryptic strategy, respectively. Furthermore, I show that evolutionary changes between aposematism and crypsis can be associated with coevolution of both morphology and behaviour. I argue that this coevolution may increase the likelihood of both pre- and post-zygotic reproductive isolation. This is because greater phenotypic differences between populations increase the likelihood of selection against badly adapted migrants and hybrids with intermediate traits.
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| 5. |
- Song, Kai, 1988-
(författare)
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Divergence, selection, demographic history and conservation genomics of sibling bird species in boreal forest in Northern Eurasia and the Qinghai-Tibetan Plateau
- 2020
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- I used two pairs of sibling boreal forest bird species to study divergence, selection, demographics, and conservation in northern Eurasia and the Qinghai-Tibetan Plateau at the microsatellite level (chapter 1) and whole genome level (chapters 2, 3, 4 and 5). In chapter 1, which is the first study to describe genetic diversity of the Sichuan Jay, I used microsatellite markers to estimate genetic differentiation in Sichuan Jay and Siberian Jay populations. The results showed similar levels of genetic variability, strong population structure, and high genetic differentiation between the two species and among different populations. In chapter 2, I used demographic analyses, and found that the Chinese Grouse has experienced substantial changes in population size from the beginning of the last interglacial, with a peak just before the last glacial maximum. The results inferred from the whole genome sequencing and species distribution models support a history of population size fluctuations. In chapter 3 to 5, I used population genomic methods to explore genomic variation, demographic divergence, local adaptation, and inbreeding from 29 whole genome re-sequenced individuals of Chinese Grouse and Hazel Grouse. I found strong evidence for population structure, changing demographic histories, and varying inbreeding levels and genetic load within both species. In Chinese Grouse, an isolated population in the northern part of the species range showed the lowest genetic diversity, high pairwise FST, high LD decay, higher inbreeding and genetic load compared to two other populations. In Hazel Grouse, there were strong population differences and inbreeding levels among the three populations, especially among the Swedish and German populations. The Swedish population likely lost genetic diversity during the re-colonization of the boreal forests in Scandinavia after the last glaciation. Analyses of genetic load showed that purifying selection of mildly deleterious mutations has been more efficient in Hazel Grouse, a species with a larger population size and range compared to Chinese Grouse. However, when I compared the genetic load as the ratio between highly deleterious loss-of-function mutations and synonymous mutations for Chinese Grouse and Hazel Grouse, purifying selection did not seem to have a large effect. My findings show that small, isolated and fragmented populations of forests birds loose genetic variation and may thereby become vulnerable to future challenges and also that populations may track past habitat changes and adapt to local conditions.
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| 6. |
- Dannewitz, Johan, 1968-
(författare)
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Genetic and Ecological Consequences of Fish Releases : With Focus on Supportive Breeding of Brown Trout Salmo trutta and Translocation of European Eel Anguilla anguilla
- 2003
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- Although the practice of releasing fish into the wild is common in the management and conservation of fish populations, the success of release programmes and the potential harmful genetic and ecological effects that may follow are rarely considered. This thesis focuses on genetic and ecological consequences of fish releases, exemplified by supportive breeding of brown trout (Salmo trutta) and translocation of European eel (Anguilla anguilla). Specific questions addressed include: What is the relative performance of hatchery produced fish released to support wild populations, and do released hatchery fish contribute to the natural productivity? What is the variation in reproductive success in the wild, and how does it affect the genetic consequences of a supportive breeding programme? Is there a spatial genetic structure in the European eel that must be considered in the management of this rapidly declining species?Experiments conducted under natural and near-natural conditions in the River Dalälven, Sweden, suggest that hatchery produced trout can reproduce in the wild. In fact, when the pronounced variation between individual breeders was accounted for, there were no detectable differences between hatchery produced and wild born trout in reproductive success or offspring survival. These results were supported by molecular genetic data suggesting a pronounced gene flow from hatchery to wild trout in the river. Hatchery reared trout were, however, found to exhibit reduced survival rates immediately following release into the wild, an effect that was most likely due to phenotypic responses to the hatchery environment during ontogeny and a lack of experience of the wild.In sharp contrast to recently published studies, the present genetic analyses of European eels sampled across the whole distribution range suggest no spatial genetic structure but a subtle temporal genetic heterogeneity within sampled locations. These results emphasise the need to consider temporal replication when assessing population structure of marine species.The results obtained have general implications for the management and conservation of fish populations. First, supportive breeding of threatened salmonid populations might be successful, not only for boosting the census size and thereby reducing the short-term probability of extinction, but also for reducing the risks of inbreeding depression and loss of adaptive potential in future generations. However, the results also highlight the need to restore the natural productivity of a population under supportive breeding to avoid a potential reduction in fitness due to hatchery selection. Further, the lack of a detectable spatial genetic structure in the European eel suggests that the management strategy of translocating juvenile eels from locations were they are overabundant to other suitable freshwater habitats does not necessarily have to include genetic considerations with respect to the geographical origin of the translocated eels.
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| 7. |
- Forsberg, Lars
(författare)
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Genetic Aspects of Sexual Selection and Mate Choice in Salmonids
- 2008
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- The long-term genetic consequences of supportive breeding programs are not well understood. Nevertheless, stocking populations with hatchery-produced fish to compensate for losses of natural production are common practice, for example after constructions of hydroelectric power dams. Hatcheries typically fertilize eggs using ‘mixed-milt fertilizations’, without consideration to natural reproductive behaviours, and hence, natural selective regimes would be altered. Here, a series of experiments with focus on Mhc and mate choice in a population of brown trout (Salmo trutta L.) with a history of long-term stocking are presented. The major histocompatibility complex (Mhc) constitutes of genes coding for antigen presentation in the vertebrate immune system. In addition to the immunological function, Mhc genes might also influence reproductive behaviours such as mate choice. For example, in some species individuals are able to recognize Mhc genotypes of potential mates and to some extent base their mate choice on this information. Here, I address these questions on brown trout. Can the phenomena be observed in brown trout? Could such mechanisms help individuals to avoid inbreeding, or are other mechanisms important? How does the artificial rearing of fish for enhancement of natural populations relate to these issues? The results presented here, in combination with previous work, shows that several factors are important in the process of pair formation in salmonid species. For example, females of the studied population used more than a single criterion when choosing among the available mates Mhc genes and males with certain Mhc genotypes achieved more matings, possibly an effect from increased fighting ability. Further, the population appears to contain an unnatural high level of Mhc variation, and some results indicate that the population might suffer from outbreeding depression at the Mhc. These negative effects are most likely derived from compression of sub-populations after dam-construction, in combination with supportive breeding with no consideration to natural spawning behaviour.
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| 8. |
- Kozma, Radoslav, 1987-
(författare)
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Inferring demographic history and speciation of grouse using whole genome sequences
- 2016
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- From an ecological perspective, knowledge of demographic history is highly valuable because population size fluctuations can be matched to known climatic events, thereby revealing great insight into a species’ reaction to past climate change. This in turn enables us to predict how they might respond to future climate scenarios. Prominently, with the advent of high-throughput sequencing it is now becoming possible to assemble genomes of non-model organisms thereby providing unprecedented resolution to the study of demographic history and speciation. This thesis utilises four species of grouse (Aves, subfamily Tetraoninae) in order to explore the demographic history and speciation within this lineage; the willow grouse, red grouse, rock ptarmigan and the black grouse. I, and my co-authors, begin by reviewing the plethora of methods used to estimate contemporary effective population size (Ne) and demographic history that are available to animal conservation practitioners. We find that their underlying assumptions and necessary input data can bias in their application, and thus we provide a summary of their applicability.I then use the whole genomes of the black grouse, willow grouse and rock ptarmigan to infer their population dynamics within the last million years. I find three dominant periods that shape their demographic history: early Pleistocene cooling (3-0.9 Mya), the mid-Brunhes event (430 kya) and the last glacial period (110-10 kya). I also find strong signals of local population history – recolonization and subdivision events – affecting their demography. In the subsequent study, I explore the grouse dynamics within the last glacial period in more detail by including more distant samples and using ecological modelling to track habitat distribution changes. I further uncover strong signals of local population history, with multiple fringe populations undergoing severe bottlenecks. I also determine that future climate change is expected to drastically constrict the distribution of the studied grouse.Lastly, I use whole genome sequencing to uncover 6 highly differentiated regions, containing 7 genes, hinting at their role in adaptation and speciation in three grouse taxa. I also locate a region of low differentiation, containing the Agouti pigmentation gene, indicating its role in the grouse plumage coloration.
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| 9. |
- Lindgren, Beatrice, 1974-
(författare)
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Adaptation Along Environmental Gradients: an Evaluation of Physiological Mechanisms and Ecological Constraints
- 2007
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- For ectotherms living in seasonal environments, time available for development and growth is often constrained by the length of the growth season. Declining season length towards higher latitudes often select for latitudinal clines in development and growth rates, exhibiting increasing growth and developmental rates towards the north. However, the physiological and ecological factors enabling these clines are poorly understood.Our study system included eight populations of Rana temporaria along a 1500 km latitudinal gradient. We found increased growth rates in populations at higher latitudes to be the result of higher growth efficiency, partly due to increased relative gut length. Populations with higher growth rates also exhibited lower standard metabolic rates, implying that fast-growing individuals are able to achieve high growth rates by spending less energy on maintenance metabolism under low activity conditions.Predator densities, and antipredatory defenses in prey, are assumed to decrease towards higher latitudes. While all study populations responded to predator presence by decreasing activity and foraging, high latitude populations maintained higher activity levels in the presence of the predator. In trials with a free-ranging predator, high latitude tadpoles experienced higher mortality than those from the low latitudes. The higher activity level in the northern populations increases mortality under predation risk, but is probably needed to maintain high growth and development rates.When competing over resources, tadpoles from the low latitude population were inferior competitors, as indicated by their longer development time when raised together with high latitude tadpoles. We found no effect of latitude on size-corrected burst speed. The general effect of predator presence on burst speed depended on food availability, with well fed tadpoles being faster in the absence, and food restricted being faster in the presence of a predator.
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| 10. |
- Meurling, Sara, 1977-
(författare)
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The response in native wildlife to an invading pathogen: Swedish amphibians and Batrachochytrium dendrobatidis
- 2019
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- Emerging infectious diseases are causing mortality and declines in wildlife populations globally. My thesis aims to get as clear a picture as possible of the effect the invasive chytrid fungus Batrachochytrium dendrobatidis has on the Swedish amphibian community.In Paper I I performed a large-scale survey testing for the presence of Bd in three regions in Sweden (Southern, Central and Northern). I sampled 1917 amphibians from 101 localities and found that Bd was widespread in southern and central Sweden, occurring in all nine investigated species and in 45.5 % of the sampled sites with an overall prevalence of 13.8%. I found a positive correlation between the temperature at spawning for each species and species prevalence. Species that require higher temperatures for egg-laying are distributed in the southern parts of the country, which led to a higher prevalence in the southern region.In Paper II, I investigated which local environmental factors in breeding habitats, landscape structure and amphibian community affect the occurrence and prevalence of Bd among breeding sites in southern Sweden. Bd prevalence in the four species with the highest prevalence (Bombina bombina, Bufotes variabilis, Epidalea calamita and Rana arvalis) was higher in ponds surrounded by less mature forest, few wetlands, and higher pH.In Papers III and IV, I looked at species and population differences in responses to Bd infection. I performed an infection experiment described in Paper III, where I exposed individuals from two common Swedish species (moor frog R. arvalis and common toad Bufo bufo) originating from two regions (north and south) with two different strains of Bd (from Sweden and the UK). I found that infection led to lower survival and growth in both species, more so in B. bufo than in R. arvalis. Small size proved to be a strong determinant of survival. As individuals from the northern population were significantly smaller than the southern ones, this may have led to the northern populations being more affected by Bd infection. In Paper IV, I studied variation in MHC Class IIB loci in B. bufo along a latitudinal gradient across Sweden. Variation in MCH genes decreased from south to north. Also, differences in survival from the experiment in Paper III could be explained by MHC haplotypes. I found that survival in the southern region was dependent on both Bd-strain and MHC haplotype.
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