Genomic-based measures of population abundance and fitness to assess the status of species at risk: boreal caribou

Funding period: 2020-2024
Lead: Micheline Manseau
Total GRDI funding: $120,000

Environment and Climate Change Canada (ECCC), in collaboration with provincial and territorial governments, and Indigenous groups is responsible for the recovery strategy of boreal caribou and the facilitation of population monitoring and assessment. ECCC has also committed to the development of monitoring standards to better report on population status. Non-invasive genomic methods are developing rapidly and can provide a cost-effective means to support long-term monitoring efforts. In synergy with a recently awarded Genome Canada project led by Dr. Wilson and Dr. Manseau aiming at furthering the development of a genomics monitoring toolkit for boreal caribou, this GRDI project uses genomic data and familial networks analyses to provide new insights into population abundance, individual fitness and gene flow across the boreal region. Spatially explicit familial networks are used to generate individual and population-based demographic parameters and new statistical analyses are being developed to analyze the resulting multi-layer networks and support direct applications for practitioners.