Abstract
We consider the Fennoscandian harvest regime of moose to represent a large-scale population manipulation experiment, which can be used to study how changes in the age- and sex-composition infer with evolutionary processes within populations and their ability to adapt to future environmental changes. We will parameterize stochastic age-structured population models based on long-term individual-based data from the island of Vega in northern Norway where almost all individuals have been radio-collared since 1992. Combined with detailed pedigrees this allows us to obtain estimates of the effective population size, which is the basic concept for understanding evolutionary dynamics at the molecular and phenotypic levels. We will then examine whether geographical differences in temporal variation of genetic diversity of Norwegian moose can be related to differences in those demographic characteristics these analyses have shown to be most strongly associated with variation in the effective population size. In a fluctuating environment, environmental and demographic stochasticity create continual fluctuations in age structure, which seriously complicate demographic and evolutionary analyses. R.A. Fisher suggested for analysis of genetic evolution that individuals should be weighted by their reproductive value to compensate for deviations from the stable age distribution. Here we will apply a new statistical method to study fluctuating selection on two important quantitative fitness-traits in moose, date of birth and calf body mass, at the island of Vega. We will also study the evolutionary dynamics of these two traits, using the dynamics of the reproductive value. Then we will implement varying patterns of age-specific harvest from different parts of Norway in this model to explore how different patterns in age-specific harvest rates will affect the rate of evolutionary change of these two important quantitative characters.
Norway