PARENT SESSION
Oral Session #79: Conservation Ecology: Biodiversity Case Studies and Models. Presiding: T. Rooney.
Friday, August 10, 2001. 8:00 AM to 12:00 PM. Hall of Ideas J.
A GIS-based approach for assessing conservation status of genetic diversity at a regional scale.
Ji, Wei ("Wayne")1, 1
ABSTRACT- Conserving genetic diversity requires an assessment of the distribution of genetic variants in relation to patterns of land use and environmental variation at a regional scale. This assessment needs a novel approach to integrating and analyzing the genetic and environmental data across spatial scales. To explore the integration of genetic data with other spatial data sets, a study was conducted in collaboration with a conservation geneticist. A GIS-based approach was developed for examining patterns of genetic diversity for several species of salamanders in southern Appalachians. With a geospatial point object model developed, the genetic data, from allozyme surveys in the genetics literature, were converted to a geospatial format and integrated into a GIS database. Using existing geospatial data, sampling locations were classified as being either protected from anthropogenic disturbance or as unprotected. Diversity indices, obtained by reanalysis of the genetic data, were integrated into the GIS database to facilitate spatial analysis and visualization of the indices in relation to spatial variation in land use. This approach was useful for identifying both populations with components of genetic variation that were not well represented at protected sites and areas of species distributions where more genetic sampling would be necessary to make informed management decisions.
KEY WORDS: genetic diversity, conservation , GIS, spatial analysis