DNA PROFILING AND POPULATION HISTORY IN CONSERVATION
Bibliographic record
Abstract
The fundamental objective ofconservation genetics is the identification ofthe basic units of conservation. Central to this objective is the reconstruction ofthe adaptive and evolutionary history of populations to evaluate their conservation status. Evolutionary history involves both microevolutionary and macroevolutionary processes and adaptive history is the evolution ofspecific characters to selective ecological processes in differential heterogeneous environments. Neutral DNA markers such as mitochondrial DNA, minisatellites and microsatellites are most often used for reconstructing history and identifying conservation units. This thesis examined three biological systems: 1) an African cichlid, 2) Canadian moose populations and 3) eastern North American wolves and coyotes to test two hypotheses. Firstly, neutral DNA markers can be used to accurately reconstruct the evolutionary history ofpopulations. Secondly, neutral DNA markers are concordant with adaptive distinctiveness in reconstructing the adaptive history ofpopulations. Few studies have examined these relationships. Lake Magadi tilapia showed discordant patterns between adaptive morphological, physiological and behavioural characters and genetic structure assessed with mitochondrial DNA. I propose this discordance has resulted from selection acting on mitochondrial DNA that has often been assumed to be “neutral”. Neutral DNA markers accurately reflected the known history ofthe moose populations but discordant patterns were observed between neutral and functional loci indicating the former may not accurately reflect adaptive variation. DNA profiles of eastern wolves and coyotes showed a significant conflict in the interpretation ofmtDNA and microsatellite data compared to previous genetic studies that examined wolftaxonomy. The data were consistent with the hypothesis of a North American-evolved wolf. Coyote-like mtDNA was not of coyote origin but represented divergent but related sequences of a North American wolflineage independent of the gray wolf(C. lupus). Under this new model of eastern wolfevolution, we also identified the hybrid origin of eastern coyotes, contrary to previous interpretations, and genetically characterised different wolf “types” within Ontario. These findings could not reject the first hypothesis as neutral markers were used to reconstructthe histories ofthe three biological systems. However, the findings identified that it is important to ensure the neutrality ofDNA markers and thatsamples are representative ofthe taxa under investigation. The findings in this thesis did not support the second hypothesis, as neutral DNA markers were not concordant with adaptive characters, i.e. morphology, physiology and functional genetic markers.
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How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame machine prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. The Gemma side is a direct model label for every work in the frame, read from the title-only record. The Codex side is a classifier learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and calibrated to design-weighted sample rates; fields without enough sample support carry no Codex call. Candidate is the union of the two sides; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels.
Distilled classifier scores by category (both heads)
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.002 | 0.003 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.002 | 0.002 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.001 | 0.002 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.001 | 0.002 |
| Open science | 0.000 | 0.001 |
| Research integrity | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.002 | 0.000 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; a candidate call from one source (direct Gemma or distilled Codex), not a consensus.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".