Projet
Conserving evolutionary diversity: Identifying distinct threespine stickleback populations in Eastern QuébecIntraspecific variation is now widely recognized as an important part of biodiversity, with significant implications for conservation and management. So much so, that many conservation policies, including the Species At Risk Act (SARA), increasingly enable the listing of distinct populations when those populations possess unique evolutionary histories, ecological roles, or phenotypic traits. However, such populations may also be particularly vulnerable to environmental disturbance, placing them at risk of losing the very traits that make them distinct. This highlights the importance of surveying intraspecific diversity across landscapes, yet many regions remain poorly characterized in this regard. My study aims to address this knowledge gap for threespine stickleback (Gasterosteus aculeatus) in Parc national du Lac-Témiscouata, a conservation-mandated protected area in Eastern Québec. Although stickleback are a model system for understanding adaptive divergence and ecological speciation, Eastern North American populations remain critically under-studied. Where they have been surveyed, stickleback often exhibit high levels of intraspecific phenotypic and ecological variation, levels that often merit formal conservation attention. This research will provide a foundational survey of phenotypic, ecological, and genetic variation in this system and contribute to a broader understanding of freshwater biodiversity in Eastern Canada.
