Assignment: Wombat Species Across Australia

Research Question and Critical Reading Assignment
Name GGR305: BiogeographyInstructor Date
1. Research question
* How has the distribution of the bare‐nosed or common wombat (Vombatus ursinus) changed in Australia?
There are three wombat species across Australia, the bare‐nosed or common wombat (Vombatus ursinus) and two species of the hairy-nosed wombats, the southern hairy-nosed wombat (Lasiorhinus latifrons) and the northern hairy-nosed wombat (Lasiorhinus krefftii).
2. Key words/phrases and references
Key Words: The bare‐nosed or common wombat(Vombatus ursinus), genetic divergence, distribution, Australia, habitat suitability, island biogeography
Alpers, D. L., Walker, F. M., Taylor, A. C., Sunnucks, P., Bellman, S., Hansen, B. D., & Sherwin, W. B. (2016). Evidence of subdivisions on evolutionary timescales in a large, declining marsupial distributed across a phylogeographic barrier. PLoS One, 11(10)doi:http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0162789
Martin, A., Carver, S., Proft, K., Fraser, T., Polkinghorne, A., Banks, S., & Burridge, C. (2019). Isolation, marine transgression and translocation of the bare‐nosed wombat ( Vombatus ursinus ). Evolutionary Applications, 12(6), 1114-1123.https://doi.org/10.1111/eva.12785
Old, J., Lin, S., & Franklin, M. (2019). Mapping out bare-nosed wombat (Vombatus ursinus) burrows with the use of a drone. BMC Ecology, 19(1). https://doi.org/10.1186/s12898-019-0257-5
Roger, E., Laffan, S., & Ramp, D. (2007). Habitat selection by the common wombat (Vombatus ursinus) in disturbed environments: Implications for the conservation of a ‘common’ species. Biological Conservation, 137(3), 437-449. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.biocon.2007.03.001
Simpson, K., Johnson, C., & Carver, S. (2016). Sarcoptes scabiei: The Mange Mite with Mighty Effects on the Common Wombat (Vombatus ursinus). PLOS ONE, 11(3), e0149749.https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0149749
3. For one of the five articles you identify, please read it carefully and answer the following questions (make sure it is clear which article you have selected to answer the questions). You cannot use a review paper to answer these questions; make certain that the article is a primary source. In other words, it involves some type of data (e.g. field observations, samples of material, computer simulated data) that is analyzed and does not just provide a summary or reflection of other scholarly papers.
A. What is the research question(s) that this paper is trying to answer?(10 pts)
* What are the effects of isolation, marine transgression and translocation on the genetic divergence and speciation of the bare‐nosed wombat (Vombatus ursinus)?
* What affects the gene divergence, population structure and genetic differentiation of the bare‐nosed wombat?
B. How is the research question addressed? In three to five sentence please identify the type of data used (field observations, samples of material, computer simulated data, or something else) and how the data were analyzed. In other words, what methods were used in the paper?
The researchers used previously collected 234 bare‐nosed wombat tissue samples for the subspecies found in the Australian mainland Bass Strait Is...