Biology ETDs
Publication Date
Fall 12-13-2027
Abstract
Global climate change is impacting biodiversity and has forced populations to adapt, invade new habitats, or face extinction. Assessing the impacts of environmental change and novel threats to biodiversity represents a central challenge for contemporary science. By utilizing a combination of computational biology, environmental toxicology, and museum research techniques, I investigated how populations respond to sudden environmental shifts and evaluated novel environmental threats to vulnerable populations. In my first chapter, I investigated how the spatial storage effect leads to evolutionary rescue and long-term persistence in populations experiencing rapid and continuous environmental shifts. My second chapter deals with another response to environmental shifts – invasion. Specifically, I show that balancing selection in an ancestral population affects establishment in novel habitats when founder populations are small. Finally, my third study evaluates how the novel environmental threat of microplastics/nanoplastics impacts a mammal of conservation concern, the San Nicolas Island Fox (Urocyon littoralis dickeyi).
Keywords
computational biology, environmental toxicology, museum studies
Document Type
Dissertation
Degree Name
Biology
Level of Degree
Doctoral
Department Name
UNM Biology Department
First Committee Member (Chair)
Davorka Gulisija
Second Committee Member
Joseph Cook
Third Committee Member
Helen Wearing
Fourth Committee Member
Matthew Campen
Fifth Committee Member
Marcus Garcia
Recommended Citation
Rowland, Eve Nancy. "From Computer Simulations to Channel Island Foxes: Life in the Face of Environmental Change." (2027). https://digitalrepository.unm.edu/biol_etds/647