Eco-evolutionary dynamics of rewilding: Real-time genetic monitoring of large-mammal community reassembly
New NSF award under the Biodiversity on a Changing Planet program:
Defaunation and rewilding are perturbations that can reveal potent insights into the fundamental ecological and evolutionary processes that structure populations, communities, and ecosystems.
We present an ambitious vision to develop the capacity to conduct comprehensive, non- invasive, real-time analysis of fitness components (reproduction, survival) and ecological correlates (diet, microbiome, parasites, hormones) from fecal samples in a reassembling megafaunal community in Mozambique’s Gorongosa National Park. We will study the eco-evolutionary dynamics of community reassembly, developing new genomic tools to quantify reproductive success and link it to phenotypic, demographic, and ecological variables.
We will use these methods to address 4 questions. (1) How does ecological release from predation affect prey fitness as a function of individual behavior, and does predator recovery reverse these effects? (2) Does defaunation result in alternative community states, preventing formerly abundant species from recovering? (3) Do behavioral anomalies in species introduced at low abundance dissipate or persist as populations grow? (4) How do food webs and niche relationships reassemble during rewilding, and what does this tell us about species coexistence?
The approaches developed in this project will be transferrable to other species and systems, advancing the ability to study evolutionary ecology mechanistically in the wild.
Species we’ll explore in this study: Zebras, African wild dogs, & bushbuck
Project collaborators:
Robert M. Pringle
Ryan Long
Dmitri Petrov
This project graciously supported by
