9622182 Palumbi Most species are comprised on interacting populations, and describing these interactions are understanding their consequences remains one of the greatest challenges in conservation biology. To date, metapopulation modeling and demographic description of interacting populations have been matched by technical advances in the detection of genetic differences within and between populations. However, a comprehensive melding of demographic, modeling and genetic approaches to metapopulations has yet to be achieved. When is an ecological population identifiable as a genetic population? When do differences in genetics correctly predict results of metapopulation models? These questions need to be answered to bring genetic and ecological approaches to metapopulations together. This research seeks to understand the processes by which populations become genetically distinct from one another. Such genetic distinctions are at the heart of recent definitions of evolutionarily significant units for conservation management which depend on reciprocal monophyly of populations at some genetic locus. Previously, much attention has been placed on mitochondrial DNA because these loci become monophyletic rapidly. However, mtDNA can not be used to parameterize ecological models of population structure because mtDNA only tracks maternal inheritance patterns. How useful are nuclear loci in discriminating populations genetically? This depends on the rate of development of monophyly of nuclear genes compared to mitochondrial genes. Population genetic theory predicts a simple relationship between these two rates, but this prediction depends on many assumptions that have never been tested in any animal system. This conservation biology research will investigate the development of reciprocal monophyly in mitochondrial and nuclear loci in a set of defined species of whales and dolphins. This study will have direct application to the rate at which populations become distinguishable genetically and ecologically . This is a central questions when dealing with populations of endangered species. In addition, the genetic markers developed in this research will have important practical applications for monitoring whale and dolphin populations.
