Eco-Evolutionary Rescue of Fragmented Populations

Introduction

Here I will establish eco-evolutionary rescue analyses as a predictive science. I will do this by developing theories, principles, and tools for assessing whether populations can cope with changes in the environment at both short (ecological) and long (evolutionary) timescales.

Theoretical Framework

I contend that analyses involving the capacity of organisms to adapt to environmental changes must be based on theories including realistic ecological assumptions. My aim is therefore to develop a common theoretical framework for analyses of eco-evolutionary dynamics that includes basic features that characterize almost all natural populations, such as:

• Stochastic fluctuations in population size
• Density-dependent feedback mechanisms
• Dispersal among geographically separate populations

Recent Developments

I will be able to achieve this ambitious goal because I have recently been involved in developing a new set of theories that have identified novel quantities based on general ecological characteristics that eco-evolutionary processes tend to maximize. These provide objective measures of a population's capacity to change, which can be used to assess the consequences of habitat loss and changes in environmental variation such as those expected due to climate change.

Data and Methodology

I will be able to parameterize these models via my access to one of the largest individual-based long-term field studies of any vertebrate species, including data of more than 36,000 individual house sparrows from 18 populations on islands within a large geographical area of northern Norway. This will enable me to quantify processes rarely analyzed before in natural populations.

Focus and Goals

A central focus will be to derive new metrics that describe how the degree of persistence of a population to environmental change depends upon its size and population dynamic characteristics. Thus, this project will provide operationalization of eco-evolutionary rescue analyses as a research field for assessment of the vulnerability of species to global changes.