Individual-based analysis opens new insights into understanding population structure and animal behaviour.
Studying the movement of individuals in the wild has always been a challenge in ecology. However, estimating such movement is essential in life sciences as it is the base-line for evaluating connectivity, a major component in developing management and conservation plans. Furthermore, movement, or migration, is an essential parameter in population genetics, as it directly affects genetic differentiation. The development of highly variable markers has allowed genetic discrimination between individuals within populations and at larger scales, and the availability of high-throughput technologies means that many samples and hence many individuals can be screened. These advances mean that we can now use genetic identification for tracking individuals, and hence follow both survival and reproductive output through the life cycle. The paper by Morrissey & Ferguson (2011, this issue) is a demonstration of this new capability, as authors were able to infer the movement of salmonid fish initially captured as juveniles, and later as reproductively mature adults.
USR 3278 CNRS-EPHE, CRIOBE, BP 1013, 98729 Moorea, French Polynesia.
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D025041:Animal Migration; D000818:Animals; D001522:Behavior, Animal; D014644:Genetic Variation; D059014:High-Throughput Nucleotide Sequencing; D011157:Population Dynamics; D014337:Trout / Q000235:genetics / Q000502:physiology*