About this Research Topic
The Anthropocene is a proposed epoch dating from the beginning of significant human impact on the Earth’s ecosystems. The Anthropocene landscapes are composed of diverse land covers and use types, such as forests, grasslands, pastures, crop plantations, watercourses, roads, power transmission lines, urban and rural buildings. While natural vegetation is being converted to anthropogenic land uses, understanding the effects that these changes have in landscape is of the utmost importance for the status of biodiversity. Therefore, we need to advance our knowledge on this key topic in order to fulfill the information gaps, particularly those that are essential baseline information for conservation and management of biodiversity.
While landscape ecology analyzes how landscape features affect community and ecosystems, landscape genetics provides information about the interaction between landscape features and evolutionary processes. For this, landscape genetics usually uses genetic parameters such as diversity, inbreeding, and genetic differentiation to understand how gene flow, genetic drift, and selection operate in a changing environment and at local and regional levels.
In the same manner, landscape genomics, a relatively new discipline, focuses on the adaptive genetic imprints in genomes and the environmental heterogeneity. Different from landscape genetics, landscape genomics requires a sufficient number of molecular markers to cover the entire genome to find adaptive evolution at the genome level. Landscape genetics, however, is biased toward using a relatively small number of molecular markers to reveal the relationship between environmental factors and the spatial genetic structure of populations.
In this Research Topic, we aim to publish a set of innovative papers on the frontiers of Landscape Genetics and Genomics in the Anthropocene. In particular, we hope to receive contributions on the following topics:
• Conceptual framework;
• Reviews based on available case studies (spatial pattern analysis, meta analysis);
• Model and analysis concepts;
• Research papers on landscape genetics and genomics in different spatial scales (local, regional, continental);
• Agricultural landscapes;
• Landscape genetics, genomics and conservation;
• Landscape genetics, genomics and ecosystem services.
While landscape ecology analyzes how landscape features affect community and ecosystems, landscape genetics provides information about the interaction between landscape features and evolutionary processes. For this, landscape genetics usually uses genetic parameters such as diversity, inbreeding, and genetic differentiation to understand how gene flow, genetic drift, and selection operate in a changing environment and at local and regional levels.
In the same manner, landscape genomics, a relatively new discipline, focuses on the adaptive genetic imprints in genomes and the environmental heterogeneity. Different from landscape genetics, landscape genomics requires a sufficient number of molecular markers to cover the entire genome to find adaptive evolution at the genome level. Landscape genetics, however, is biased toward using a relatively small number of molecular markers to reveal the relationship between environmental factors and the spatial genetic structure of populations.
In this Research Topic, we aim to publish a set of innovative papers on the frontiers of Landscape Genetics and Genomics in the Anthropocene. In particular, we hope to receive contributions on the following topics:
• Conceptual framework;
• Reviews based on available case studies (spatial pattern analysis, meta analysis);
• Model and analysis concepts;
• Research papers on landscape genetics and genomics in different spatial scales (local, regional, continental);
• Agricultural landscapes;
• Landscape genetics, genomics and conservation;
• Landscape genetics, genomics and ecosystem services.
Keywords: Spatio-temporal heterogeneity, Functional connectivity, Spatial analysis, Genetic diversity, Adaptive genetic variation
Important Note: All contributions to this Research Topic must be within the scope of the section and journal to which they are submitted, as defined in their mission statements. Frontiers reserves the right to guide an out-of-scope manuscript to a more suitable section or journal at any stage of peer review.
