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| Author(s): |
Lucas Rodrigues de Freitas
Total Authors: 1
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| Document type: | Master's Dissertation |
| Press: | São Paulo. |
| Institution: | Universidade de São Paulo (USP). Instituto de Biociências (IBIOC/SB) |
| Defense date: | 2023-02-14 |
| Examining board members: |
Paulo Inácio de Knegt López de Prado;
Paula Lemos da Costa;
Diogo Meyer;
Tiago Bosisio Quental
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| Advisor: | Paulo Inácio de Knegt López de Prado |
| Abstract | |
The preexisting variation within a population, as well as its heritability, are fundamental prerequisites to the persistence of the population suffering from disturbance events. Of the many anthropic sources of wildlife extinction, habitat loss has proven itself to be one of major importance. Moreover, the spatial configuration of how habitat remains on the landscape may bear significance beyond simply the amount of habitat removed. Several explanations for the persistence of populations focus on the existence of species whose traits mitigate the effects of habitat loss and fragmentation while overlooking that those favorable traits may arise at the individual level as a consequence of preexisting intraspecific variation in resource usage. Thus, the interaction between quantitative heritable variation and landscape populational dynamics falls at the interface between ecological and evolutionary processes, a hot topic for both theoretical and empirical developments. We used computer simulations to systematically explore the logical consequences of varying initial amounts of intraspecific variation in the extinction time of populations in the events of varying amounts of both habitat loss and fragmentation. We found that higher initial amounts of intraspecific variation generally increase the persistence of populations under most instances of habitat destruction, but also that this relationship is not monotonous. We also found that, although higher amounts of habitat loss are objectively more hazardous for populations, its association with lower degrees of fragmentation may be especially detrimental to individual types (and analogous species with narrow niche widths), while its association with higher fragmentation is more harmful to the populational survival. (AU) | |
| FAPESP's process: | 19/24355-9 - Do initial amounts of adaptive intraspecific variation matter for the persistence of populations in fragmented landscapes? |
| Grantee: | Lucas Rodrigues de Freitas |
| Support Opportunities: | Scholarships in Brazil - Master |