Dissertation Research: Reaction Norms of Ontogenetic Trajectories in Lobelia

个体发育和遗传变异是两个被认为 对我们理解人类的行为模式和过程至关重要 进化的变化 虽然研究的基本概念 发展系统和规范的基因型的反应， 环境已经制定了在上半年， 世纪，直到最近才成为一个中心焦点， 实验和理论工作。 发展方面 集中在个体发育轨迹的概念，它描述了 生长过程中表型的变化。 环境 变异，这激发了基因型特异性反应，称为 表型可塑性，是由一个功能， 环境和表型通过基因型：即，的 反应规范 本提案的目的是将 遗传学研究中的发育和环境方面 两个物种，半边莲和半边莲的变异性 siphilitica（半边莲科）。 该研究项目分为 两个不同的实验：（I）实验I是对 个体发育轨迹的可塑性， 在两个群体的基因型样本中， 物种 其目的是获得有关1）遗传 发展过程中反应规范的变化，以及2）如何 环境变化可以改变发展轨迹。 (II)实验二是人工选择实验， 根据从实验I获得的信息，将测试 半边莲遗传系统的能力。应对 反应指标的加性遗传方差选择。 一 这种类型的研究的最接近的目标是获得可靠的 表型进化模型，使用一些参数值 from actual实际experiments实验. 在这个意义上的尝试已经 发表，但只集中在个体发育的组成部分， 变化量 需要更全面的模型，其中包括 环境变化，并与我们的一般 了解生物的复杂性，并与实际的实验 可能性 最终目的是获得一个基本的了解 以及一种普遍的现象学描述， 表型的新奇性可以出现，并最终被固定在 宏观进化 这些概念，加上平行增加 在我们的知识的生理和分子基础上， 现象，最终会导致我们对 人口生物学和分子遗传学如何结合起来， 对进化现象有更全面的了解。

Ontogeny and genetic variation are two topics that are thought to be crucial for our understanding of patterns and processes of evolutionary change. Although the basic concepts for the study of developmental systems and the reaction of norms of genotypes to the environments had been formulated during the first half of this century, only recently have they become a central focus of experimental and theoretical work. The developmental aspect focuses on the concept of ontogenetic trajectories, which describes the change in phenotype during growth. The environmental variation, which elicits a genotype-specific response called phenotypic plasticity, is described by a function that relates environments and phenotypes through the genotype: i.e., the reaction norm. The aim of this proposal is to couple the developmental and environmental aspects in a study of genetic variability in two species, Lobelia cardinalis and Lobelia siphilitica (Lobeliaceae). The research project is divided into two distinct experiments: (I) Experiment I is a description of the plasticity for ontogenetic trajectories to different level of shading in the genotypes samples from two populations for each species. The objective is to gain information about 1) genetic variation for reaction norms across development and 2) how environmental changes can modify the developmental trajectory. (II) Experiment II is an artificial selection experiment which - based on the information obtained from Experiment I - will test the ability of the genetic systems of Lobelia spp. to respond to selection on additive genetic variance of their reaction norms. A proximal objective of this type of research is to obtain reliable models of phenotypic evolution, using some of the parameter values from actual experiments. Attempts in this sense have already been published, but focused only on the ontogenetic component of variation. A more comprehensive model is desirable, which includes environmental variation and is consistent with our general understanding of biological complexity and with actual experimental possibilities. The ultimate goal is to gain a basic understanding and a general phenomenological description of the ways in which phenotypic novelties can arise and eventually be fixed during macroevolution. These notions, together with the parallel increase in our knowledge of the physiological and molecular basis of such phenomena, would eventually lead us to less vague statements about how population biology and molecular genetics can be coupled for a more complete understanding of evolutionary phenomena.