IAP-25-033

Testing Local Adaptation During Ecosystem Restoration in Burying Beetles

This landscape genomics and behaviour project examines how social behaviour affects evolutionary recovery after ecosystem recovery. The project focuses on burying beetles (Nicrophorus vespilloides) as an indicator species.

At an extensive study site in the Scottish Highlands, the beetles inhabit a geographic mosaic of plantation monoculture forest, felled forest, and native-reforested patches of varying ages, all well-documented and mapped at meter resolution. Biodiversity has also been surveyed in transects through these patches.

This enables a space-for-time substitution in which to study local adaptation during ecosystem recovery. The aspiration is to ask whether social behaviour, in this case parenting, is important to this process, and infer the genomic basis of adaptive evolution during ecosystem restoration. With high spatio-temporal resolution about the dynamics of reforestation, associated changes in the relevant ecological assemblages for burying beetles (i.e. their prey items, small mammals and passerines), plus an existing foundation of work about the behavioural genetics of parenting, the project will identify eco-evolutionary strategies that enhance ecosystem resilience.

The PhD project reverses the ordinary paradigm of testing how anthropogenic pressure imposes genomic selection and instead tests what happens when humans try to release that pressure. The rationale is that resilience requires not only persistence in the face of an assault, but also rebound after the assault ends. Burying beetles are an extremely well-resourced exemplar for testing the hypothesis that social behaviour – in this case parenting – buffers populations during local adaptation to changed conditions, such as altered resource availability and habitat during re-forestation.

In addition to being supervised by Nathan Bailey at the University of St Andrews, the student will work with a secondary supervisor with expertise in the ecological, evolutionary, and physiological impacts of anthropogenic pressure in a wide range of natural systems and settings (Davide Dominoni, University of Glasgow). They will also benefit from expertise of a broader project team, including in population genomics (Oscar Gaggiotti) and burying beetle behaviour (Natalie Pilakouta) at St Andrews, landscape genomics (Lesley Lancaster, University of Aberdeen), and behavioural genetics in burying beetles (Allen Moore, University of Georgia). The research is a collaboration and CASE partnership with Corrour, who manage a 52,000 acre (26,000 ha) Scottish land holding encompassing a range of upland habitats including commercial forestry, native and naturally regenerating woodland, freshwater, and peatland. Corrour employs forestry, conservation and landscape management staff with 15 years’ worth of data collection across the holding and the student will benefit from interaction and environmental data resources available at the study site.

The work is divided into three main objectives. First, the student will sample burying beetle populations across habitats in the managed forest of Corrour. This will entail summer fieldwork in Scottish Highland conditions, liason with property managers and forestry staff, and detailed site surveys. A field assistant will be accompanying. As part of this work, the student will access GIS mapping and ecological survey data to construct a database of environmental variation across the geographic mosaic of beetle populations. Nicrophorus vespilloides are known to occur at the site, and this part of the project will achieve a high-resolution sampling effort across a varied landscape.

Second, beetles will be whole-genome resequenced and, using existing high-quality reference genome resources, population genomic analyses will be performed to reconstruct patterns of genetic variation, migration, and demographic history. Subsequent analyses of genomic selection will be integrated with environmental data to perform genome-environment association analyses. These will yield information about genomic regions implicated in adaptive responses to reforestation, and will be cross-referenced with known information about loci implicated in parenting behaviour, thermal adaptation, and other adaptive responses. Spatio-temporal analyses of biological diversity will be undertaken during a secondment to the Dominoni group at Glasgow; these will be integrated with population genomic selection analyses to test models of eco-evolutionary feedback during landscape restoration.

Third, laboratory populations of beetles from sites with differing levels of forest restoration will be established, and geographic variation in parenting behaviour will be assayed under common-garden conditions. Using behavioural ecology approaches, the student will test the hypothesis that social behaviour buffers populations from selective pressures during habitat change. Using cross-fostering experiments, this portion of the project will disentangle evolved from plastic responses in parental care behaviours.

Year 1

Research: Undertake fieldwork, collect samples for sequencing, establish laboratory beetle colonies. DNA extractions. Trip to Corrour during field season, liaison with forestry and landscape management staff.

Training/Career: Bioinformatics training via NextGenBUG, St Andrews Bioinformatics Code Clinic, and external courses as determined by student and supervisors.

Year 2

Research: Perform behavioural assays using laboratory beetle populations. Population genomic analysis of next-generation sequencing data.

Training/Career: Attend UK-based conference (e.g. PopGroup, ASAB). Secondment to Dominoni group at University of Glasgow.

Year 3

Research: Behavioural data analysis, genotype-environment association analyses.

Training/Career: International conference attendance (e.g. European Society for Evolutionary Biology, Society for Molecular Biology & Evolution), manuscript submissions

Year 3.5

Data collection complete. Further small conference attendance and liason with Corrour to share findings and develop ecosystem regeneration recommendations. Finalise and submit thesis.