Abstract
Hybridization among species is an important driver of biodiversity (generates and deteriorates species). Despite this recognition, our understanding of hybridization’s prevalence and importance is restricted because current approaches are intensive and time-consuming, hampering progress in the field. Sampling constraints further limit our ability to predict or draw broad conclusions about the evolutionary and conservation-related consequences of hybridization, e.g., species extinction. Coupling empirical and theoretical approaches, my VIDI programme will develop a novel environmental DNA toolkit that easily and efficiently quantifies hybridization, and the forces mediating it. Environmental DNA (eDNA) entails forgoing individual sampling by taking populations samples directly from the environment. Sampling eDNA is thus non-invasive and straightforward, eliminating the hurdles that have stunted expansive hybridization research to date. However, while eDNA is a powerful lens through which to view biodiversity change, to date it remains siloed in conservation and biomonitoring spheres for species-level detection because translating free-floating DNA molecules in the environment into meaningful population data is difficult. I will thus design a composite marker system to detect hybridization within populations, field-test its applicability across taxonomically, evolutionary, and ecologically distinct systems, and thereafter embed the results within a framework to track and predict the movement and tempo of hybridization. Alien Invasive Species, and their associated problems of hybridizing with native species (e.g. species extinction or attrition of locally adapted genes), offer a unique opportunity for toolkit development in amphibians of conservation concern (across Europe) and socio-economically important fishes (North America). By testing the limits of information gathered from eDNA during species interactions and simplifying hybridization sampling regimes, my VIDI programme will transform how we approach evolutionary and ecological research. Speeding-up hybridization detection will broaden our ability to predict its outcome, hybridization’s consequences to biodiversity, and efficiently formulate more effective management and mitigation strategies of unwanted hybridization (e.g., invasive species)
Netherlands