Combating the current biodiversity crisis requires the accurate documentation of population responses to human‐induced ecological change. However, our ability to pinpoint population responses to human activities is often limited to the analysis of populations studied well after the fact. Museum collections preserve a record of population responses to anthropogenic change that can provide critical baseline data on patterns of genetic diversity, connectivity, and population structure prior to the onset of human perturbation. Here, we leverage a spatially replicated time series of specimens to document population genomic responses to the destruction of nearly 90% of coastal habitats occupied by the Savannah sparrow (
Natural history collections provide an unparalleled resource for documenting population responses to past anthropogenic change. However, in many cases, traits measured on specimens may vary temporally in response to a number of different anthropogenic pressures or demographic processes. While teasing apart these different drivers is challenging, approaches that integrate analyses of spatial and temporal series of specimens can provide a robust framework for examining whether traits exhibit common responses to ecological variation in space and time. We applied this approach to analyze bill morphology variation in California Savannah Sparrows (
- NSF-PAR ID:
- 10452048
- Publisher / Repository:
- Wiley-Blackwell
- Date Published:
- Journal Name:
- Evolutionary Applications
- Volume:
- 14
- Issue:
- 2
- ISSN:
- 1752-4571
- Format(s):
- Medium: X Size: p. 607-624
- Size(s):
- ["p. 607-624"]
- Sponsoring Org:
- National Science Foundation
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