Ancuta Fedorca, Joachim Mergeay, Adejoke O. Akinyele, Tamer Albayrak, Iris Biebach, Alice Brambilla, Pamela A. Burger, Elena Buzan, Ino Curik, Roberta Gargiulo, José A. Godoy, Santiago C. González-Martínez, Christine Grossen, Myriam Heuertz, Sean Hoban, Jo Howard-McCombe, Maria Kachamakova, Peter Klinga, Viktoria Köppä, Elenora Neugebauer, Ivan Paz-Vinas, Peter B. Pearman, Laia Pérez-Sorribes, Baruch Rinkevich, Isa-Rita M. Russo, Adélaïde Theraroz, Nia E. Thomas, Marjana Westergren, Sven Winter, Linda Laikre, Alexander Kopatz
{"title":"Dealing With the Complexity of Effective Population Size in Conservation Practice","authors":"Ancuta Fedorca, Joachim Mergeay, Adejoke O. Akinyele, Tamer Albayrak, Iris Biebach, Alice Brambilla, Pamela A. Burger, Elena Buzan, Ino Curik, Roberta Gargiulo, José A. Godoy, Santiago C. González-Martínez, Christine Grossen, Myriam Heuertz, Sean Hoban, Jo Howard-McCombe, Maria Kachamakova, Peter Klinga, Viktoria Köppä, Elenora Neugebauer, Ivan Paz-Vinas, Peter B. Pearman, Laia Pérez-Sorribes, Baruch Rinkevich, Isa-Rita M. Russo, Adélaïde Theraroz, Nia E. Thomas, Marjana Westergren, Sven Winter, Linda Laikre, Alexander Kopatz","doi":"10.1111/eva.70031","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"<p>Effective population size (<i>Ne</i>) is one of the most important parameters in evolutionary biology, as it is linked to the long-term survival capability of species. Therefore, <i>Ne</i> greatly interests conservation geneticists, but it is also very relevant to policymakers, managers, and conservation practitioners. Molecular methods to estimate <i>Ne</i> rely on various assumptions, including no immigration, panmixia, random sampling, absence of spatial genetic structure, and/or mutation-drift equilibrium. Species are, however, often characterized by fragmented populations under changing environmental conditions and anthropogenic pressure. Therefore, the estimation methods' assumptions are seldom addressed and rarely met, possibly leading to biased and inaccurate <i>Ne</i> estimates. To address the challenges associated with estimating <i>Ne</i> for conservation purposes, the COST Action 18134, Genomic Biodiversity Knowledge for Resilient Ecosystems (G-BiKE), organized an international workshop that met in August 2022 in Brașov, Romania. The overarching goal was to operationalize the current knowledge of <i>Ne</i> estimation methods for conservation practitioners and decision-makers. We set out to identify datasets to evaluate the sensitivity of <i>Ne</i> estimation methods to violations of underlying assumptions and to develop data analysis strategies that addressed pressing issues in biodiversity monitoring and conservation. Referring to a comprehensive body of scientific work on <i>Ne</i>, this meeting report is not intended to be exhaustive but rather to present approaches, workshop findings, and a collection of papers that serve as fruits of those efforts. We aimed to provide insights and opportunities to help bridge the gap between scientific research and conservation practice.</p>","PeriodicalId":168,"journal":{"name":"Evolutionary Applications","volume":"17 12","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":3.5000,"publicationDate":"2024-12-13","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC11645448/pdf/","citationCount":"0","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"Evolutionary Applications","FirstCategoryId":"99","ListUrlMain":"https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/eva.70031","RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"生物学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"Q1","JCRName":"EVOLUTIONARY BIOLOGY","Score":null,"Total":0}
引用次数: 0
Abstract
Effective population size (Ne) is one of the most important parameters in evolutionary biology, as it is linked to the long-term survival capability of species. Therefore, Ne greatly interests conservation geneticists, but it is also very relevant to policymakers, managers, and conservation practitioners. Molecular methods to estimate Ne rely on various assumptions, including no immigration, panmixia, random sampling, absence of spatial genetic structure, and/or mutation-drift equilibrium. Species are, however, often characterized by fragmented populations under changing environmental conditions and anthropogenic pressure. Therefore, the estimation methods' assumptions are seldom addressed and rarely met, possibly leading to biased and inaccurate Ne estimates. To address the challenges associated with estimating Ne for conservation purposes, the COST Action 18134, Genomic Biodiversity Knowledge for Resilient Ecosystems (G-BiKE), organized an international workshop that met in August 2022 in Brașov, Romania. The overarching goal was to operationalize the current knowledge of Ne estimation methods for conservation practitioners and decision-makers. We set out to identify datasets to evaluate the sensitivity of Ne estimation methods to violations of underlying assumptions and to develop data analysis strategies that addressed pressing issues in biodiversity monitoring and conservation. Referring to a comprehensive body of scientific work on Ne, this meeting report is not intended to be exhaustive but rather to present approaches, workshop findings, and a collection of papers that serve as fruits of those efforts. We aimed to provide insights and opportunities to help bridge the gap between scientific research and conservation practice.
期刊介绍:
Evolutionary Applications is a fully peer reviewed open access journal. It publishes papers that utilize concepts from evolutionary biology to address biological questions of health, social and economic relevance. Papers are expected to employ evolutionary concepts or methods to make contributions to areas such as (but not limited to): medicine, agriculture, forestry, exploitation and management (fisheries and wildlife), aquaculture, conservation biology, environmental sciences (including climate change and invasion biology), microbiology, and toxicology. All taxonomic groups are covered from microbes, fungi, plants and animals. In order to better serve the community, we also now strongly encourage submissions of papers making use of modern molecular and genetic methods (population and functional genomics, transcriptomics, proteomics, epigenetics, quantitative genetics, association and linkage mapping) to address important questions in any of these disciplines and in an applied evolutionary framework. Theoretical, empirical, synthesis or perspective papers are welcome.