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- Kempe Lagerholm, Vendela, 1983-
(författare)
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Animal movement on short and long time scales and the effect on genetic diversity in cold-adapted species
- 2016
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- The genetic diversity in modern species is strongly affected by contemporary gene flow between populations, which in turn is governed by individual dispersal capacities and barriers in the landscape. However, current patterns of variation have also been shaped by movement over longer time-scales, such as the successive shifts in species distributions that have occurred during past climate changes. This thesis is focused on cold-adapted species, and one parameter that has greatly influenced their current genetic diversity is how they coped with climate warming at the last glacial/interglacial transition, ca 11.7 thousand years ago. I examined this in three different small herbivore taxa; true lemmings (Lemmus), ptarmigan (Lagopus) and hares (Lepus), whose modern distributions stretch from the exposed tundra to the subarctic moorlands and taiga. In the first paper, I investigated contemporary genetic structure in the cyclic Norwegian lemming (Lemmus lemmus) and proposed that mass movements during peak years act as pulses of gene flow between mountain areas, which homogenise the gene pool over surprisingly vast geographic distances. However, when I used ancient DNA to analyse the lemmings’ ability for long-term directional movement, I found that the Ice Age populations that inhabited the former midlatitude European tundra-steppe appear to have been incapable of shifting their distribution northwards following post-glacial climate warming. Instead, the results suggest that the endemic Norwegian lemming descends from an isolated population that survived the last glacial maximum in situ in a restricted ice free refugium. In contrast to the glacial lemmings, as well the majority of previously studied mammals, the ptarmigan (L. lagopus and L. muta) and hare (L. timidus) analyses revealed a long-term genetic continuity in Europe, where the midlatitude populations were able to keep pace with the rapidly changing climate at the last glacial/interglacial transition, enabling them to shift their ranges to northern and high-alpine regions. These different outcomes might be explained by ptarmigans’ flight capability that allows a less restricted dispersal across fragmented landscapes, and that the generalist nature of mountain hares makes them less vulnerable to habitat alterations. Species distribution modelling, however, indicated that continued climate warming will make some isolated regions unsuitable in the future, thereby forcing populations to adapt the new environmental conditions in order to avoid local extinctions.
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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. |
- Larson, Keith W., 1968-
(författare)
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Hybrid zone dynamics, assortative mating, and migratory programmes in a willow warbler migratory divide
- 2012
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- In this thesis I will compare and contrast the two willow warbler subspecies (Phylloscopus trochilus trochilus and P. t. acredula) with differing migratory phenotypes (or "migratype") in the context of their migratory divide and hybrid zone in central Sweden. Their migratory programs differ in the direction and distance traveled during migration. The "northern" willow warblers migrate south-southeast through the Balkan Peninsula to winter in eastern Africa. The "southern" willow warbler migrates southwest through the Iberian Peninsula to winter in western Africa. In this thesis I will also explore the consequences of hybridization for these two very closely related subspecies where they meet in central Sweden. In the first paper I investigate the role of population abundance in determining the location of the hybrid zone. Specifically, is there a region of low abundance associated with the hybrid zone? Further, is the hybrid zone located on an environmental gradient which might suggest that breeding ground environmental conditions are responsible for the lower abundance? This lower abundance may reflect the unsuitability of habitats along the environmental gradient for either parental or hybrid offspring. In my second paper, I ask if there are population specific differences in their wintering moult ecology that can be elucidated from diet derived stable isotope patterns in their winter moulted primary flight feathers? The third paper addresses the important question, does assortative mating lead to reproductive isolation or do these very similar subspecies hybridize and produce offspring? In my fourth paper, I ask does local adaptation to environmental conditions, such as temperature extremes and the short growing season, in mountain populations of willow warblers explain the apparent distribution of the “northern-allele” for the AFLP derived genetic marker WW1? Finally, in the fifth paper, I conduct a detailed analysis of phenotypic traits at 50 sites across the hybrid zone, including 35 sites visited more than once. Here I ask, does lower abundances in the west of the hybrid zone predict the zone to be wider in the west than in the east? Further, using data from repeated visits to sites across the zone, we predict low repeatabilities for migratory associated traits that would suggest that high annual turn-over in migratypes occupying the zone. For future efforts to understand hybrid zone dynamics, it will be essential to develop genetic markers that allow one to separate each parental migratypes, hybrids, and back-crosses. Once genetic markers allow the identification of hybrid offspring, orientation experiments should be conducted to elucidate migratory directional preferences that would support our hypothesis that hybrids take an intermediate migratory direction to their parental migratypes. This intermediate direction could be a significant cost to hybrid fitness, as this route would require they cross the Mediterranean Sea and Sahara Desert at their widest points.
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