Eleanor K Bors

1 INTRODUCTION Determining the ages of individuals is critical for understanding the dynamics of a population and for informing effective conservation and management actions. However, age is difficult to assess in wild animal populations, particularly those with life spans longer than typical field efforts. Additionally, age can rarely be determined by appearance and instead requires samples obtained invasively or lethally. This is counterproductive for species of conservation concern.

AbstractRange expansions driven by global change and species invasions are likely to have significant genomic, evolutionary, and ecological implications. During range expansions, strong genetic drift characterized by repeated founder events can result in decreased genetic diversity with increased distance from the center of the historic range, or the point of invasion.