Journal Articles

Permanent URI for this collectionhttps://mro.massey.ac.nz/handle/10179/7915

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Author: search.filters.author.Liggins LSubject: search.filters.subject.Biodiversity

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    Molecular phylogenetics reveals the evolutionary history of marine fishes (Actinopterygii) endemic to the subtropical islands of the Southwest Pacific
    (Elsevier Inc, 2022-11) Samayoa AP; Struthers CD; Trnski T; Roberts CD; Liggins L
    Remote oceanic islands of the Pacific host elevated levels of actinopterygian (ray-finned fishes) endemism. Characterizing the evolutionary histories of these endemics has provided insight into the generation and maintenance of marine biodiversity in many regions. The subtropical islands of Lord Howe, Norfolk, and Rangitāhua (Kermadec) in the Southwest Pacific are yet to be comprehensively studied. Here, we characterize the spatio-temporal diversification of marine fishes endemic to these Southwest Pacific islands by combining molecular phylogenies and the geographic distribution of species. We built Bayesian ultrametric trees based on open-access and newly generated sequences for five mitochondrial and ten nuclear loci, and using fossil data for time calibration. We present the most comprehensive phylogenies to date for marine ray-finned fish genera, comprising 34 species endemic to the islands, including the first phylogenetic placements for 11 endemics. Overall, our topologies confirm the species status of all endemics, including three undescribed taxa. Our phylogenies highlight the predominant affinity of these endemics with the Australian fish fauna (53%), followed by the East Pacific (15%), and individual cases where the closest sister taxon of our endemic is found in the Northwest Pacific and wider Indo-Pacific. Nonetheless, for a quarter of our focal endemics, their geographic affinity remains unresolved due to sampling gaps within their genera. Our divergence time estimates reveal that the majority of endemic lineages (67.6%) diverged after the emergence of Lord Howe (6.92 Ma), the oldest subtropical island in the Southwest Pacific, suggesting that these islands have promoted diversification. However, divergence ages of some endemics pre-date the emergence of the islands, suggesting they may have originated outside of these islands, or, in some cases, ages may be overestimated due to unsampled taxa. To fully understand the role of the Southwest Pacific subtropical islands as a 'cradle' for diversification, our study advocates for further regional surveys focused on tissue collection for DNA analysis.
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    Importance of timely metadata curation to the global surveillance of genetic diversity
    (Wiley Periodicals LLC on behalf of Society for Conservation Biology, 2023-08) Crandall ED; Toczydlowski RH; Liggins L; Holmes AE; Ghoojaei M; Gaither MR; Wham BE; Pritt AL; Noble C; Anderson TJ; Barton RL; Berg JT; Beskid SG; Delgado A; Farrell E; Himmelsbach N; Queeno SR; Trinh T; Weyand C; Bentley A; Deck J; Riginos C; Bradburd GS; Toonen RJ
    Genetic diversity within species represents a fundamental yet underappreciated level of biodiversity. Because genetic diversity can indicate species resilience to changing climate, its measurement is relevant to many national and global conservation policy targets. Many studies produce large amounts of genome-scale genetic diversity data for wild populations, but most (87%) do not include the associated spatial and temporal metadata necessary for them to be reused in monitoring programs or for acknowledging the sovereignty of nations or Indigenous peoples. We undertook a distributed datathon to quantify the availability of these missing metadata and to test the hypothesis that their availability decays with time. We also worked to remediate missing metadata by extracting them from associated published papers, online repositories, and direct communication with authors. Starting with 848 candidate genomic data sets (reduced representation and whole genome) from the International Nucleotide Sequence Database Collaboration, we determined that 561 contained mostly samples from wild populations. We successfully restored spatiotemporal metadata for 78% of these 561 data sets (n = 440 data sets with data on 45,105 individuals from 762 species in 17 phyla). Examining papers and online repositories was much more fruitful than contacting 351 authors, who replied to our email requests 45% of the time. Overall, 23% of our email queries to authors unearthed useful metadata. The probability of retrieving spatiotemporal metadata declined significantly as age of the data set increased. There was a 13.5% yearly decrease in metadata associated with published papers or online repositories and up to a 22% yearly decrease in metadata that were only available from authors. This rapid decay in metadata availability, mirrored in studies of other types of biological data, should motivate swift updates to data-sharing policies and researcher practices to ensure that the valuable context provided by metadata is not lost to conservation science forever. Importancia de la curación oportuna de metadatos para la vigilancia mundial de ladiversidad genéticaResumen:La diversidad genética intraespecífica representa un nivel fundamental, pero ala vez subvalorado de la biodiversidad. La diversidad genética puede indicar la resilienciade una especie ante el clima cambiante, por lo que su medición es relevante para muchosobjetivos de la política de conservación mundial y nacional. Muchos estudios producenuna gran cantidad de datos sobre la diversidad a nivel genético de las poblaciones silvestres,aunque la mayoría (87%) no incluye los metadatos espaciales y temporales asociados paraque sean reutilizados en los programas de monitoreo o para reconocer la soberanía de lasnaciones o los pueblos indígenas. Realizamos un “datatón” distribuido para cuantificar ladisponibilidad de estos metadatos faltantes y para probar la hipótesis que supone que estadisponibilidad se deteriora con el tiempo. También trabajamos para reparar los metadatosfaltantes al extraerlos de los artículos asociados publicados, los repositorios en línea yla comunicación directa con los autores. Iniciamos con 838 candidatos de conjuntos dedatos genómicos (representación reducida y genoma completo) tomados de la colabo-ración internacional para la base de datos de secuencias de nucleótidos y determinamosque 561 incluían en su mayoría muestras tomadas de poblaciones silvestres. Restauramoscon éxito los metadatos espaciotemporales en el 78% de estos 561 conjuntos de datos (n=440 conjuntos de datos con información sobre 45,105 individuos de 762 especies en 17filos). El análisis de los artículos y los repositorios virtuales fue mucho más productivo quecontactar a los 351 autores, quienes tuvieron un 45% de respuesta a nuestros correos. Engeneral, el 23% de nuestras consultas descubrieron metadatos útiles. La probabilidad derecuperar metadatos espaciotemporales declinó de manera significativa conforme incre-mentó la antigüedad del conjunto de datos. Hubo una disminución anual del 13.5% enlos metadatos asociados con los artículos publicados y los repositorios virtuales y hastauna disminución anual del 22% en los metadatos que sólo estaban disponibles mediante lacomunicación con los autores. Este rápido deterioro en la disponibilidad de los metadatos,duplicado en estudios de otros tipos de datos biológicos, debería motivar la pronta actual-ización de las políticas del intercambio de datos y las prácticas de los investigadores paraasegurar que en las ciencias de la conservación no se pierda para siempre el contexto valiosoproporcionado por los metadatos.
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    Global genetic diversity status and trends: towards a suite of Essential Biodiversity Variables (EBVs) for genetic composition.
    (2022-08) Hoban S; Archer FI; Bertola LD; Bragg JG; Breed MF; Bruford MW; Coleman MA; Ekblom R; Funk WC; Grueber CE; Hand BK; Jaffé R; Jensen E; Johnson JS; Kershaw F; Liggins L; MacDonald AJ; Mergeay J; Miller JM; Muller-Karger F; O'Brien D; Paz-Vinas I; Potter KM; Razgour O; Vernesi C; Hunter ME
    Biodiversity underlies ecosystem resilience, ecosystem function, sustainable economies, and human well-being. Understanding how biodiversity sustains ecosystems under anthropogenic stressors and global environmental change will require new ways of deriving and applying biodiversity data. A major challenge is that biodiversity data and knowledge are scattered, biased, collected with numerous methods, and stored in inconsistent ways. The Group on Earth Observations Biodiversity Observation Network (GEO BON) has developed the Essential Biodiversity Variables (EBVs) as fundamental metrics to help aggregate, harmonize, and interpret biodiversity observation data from diverse sources. Mapping and analyzing EBVs can help to evaluate how aspects of biodiversity are distributed geographically and how they change over time. EBVs are also intended to serve as inputs and validation to forecast the status and trends of biodiversity, and to support policy and decision making. Here, we assess the feasibility of implementing Genetic Composition EBVs (Genetic EBVs), which are metrics of within-species genetic variation. We review and bring together numerous areas of the field of genetics and evaluate how each contributes to global and regional genetic biodiversity monitoring with respect to theory, sampling logistics, metadata, archiving, data aggregation, modeling, and technological advances. We propose four Genetic EBVs: (i) Genetic Diversity; (ii) Genetic Differentiation; (iii) Inbreeding; and (iv) Effective Population Size (Ne ). We rank Genetic EBVs according to their relevance, sensitivity to change, generalizability, scalability, feasibility and data availability. We outline the workflow for generating genetic data underlying the Genetic EBVs, and review advances and needs in archiving genetic composition data and metadata. We discuss how Genetic EBVs can be operationalized by visualizing EBVs in space and time across species and by forecasting Genetic EBVs beyond current observations using various modeling approaches. Our review then explores challenges of aggregation, standardization, and costs of operationalizing the Genetic EBVs, as well as future directions and opportunities to maximize their uptake globally in research and policy. The collection, annotation, and availability of genetic data has made major advances in the past decade, each of which contributes to the practical and standardized framework for large-scale genetic observation reporting. Rapid advances in DNA sequencing technology present new opportunities, but also challenges for operationalizing Genetic EBVs for biodiversity monitoring regionally and globally. With these advances, genetic composition monitoring is starting to be integrated into global conservation policy, which can help support the foundation of all biodiversity and species' long-term persistence in the face of environmental change. We conclude with a summary of concrete steps for researchers and policy makers for advancing operationalization of Genetic EBVs. The technical and analytical foundations of Genetic EBVs are well developed, and conservation practitioners should anticipate their increasing application as efforts emerge to scale up genetic biodiversity monitoring regionally and globally.