ABR: Phenotypic Plasticity in the Life History of the Sailfin Molly, Poecilia latipinna (Pisces: Poeciliidae)

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This study will examine the environmentally-induced flexibility in the life history of the sailfin molly. It is obvious that almost any animal's life history is malleable by environmental effects such as temperature or food level. However, two aspects of that malleability are not well understood. First, there is increasing evidence that the pattern of environmental sensitivity varies among different populations of the same species. Second, it is unclear whether natural selection has molded those different patterns of sensitivity and, if it has, how it has done so. These two basic questions will be addressed by this research. There are several ways in which the lessons from this study may be applied to other problems. First, conservation biology is focusing increasingly on how to restore viable populations of a species to an area from which it has been extirpated. This work will help document how "interchangeable" are individuals from different populations of the same species and thereby whether it is ever advisable to draw colonists from a population elsewhere in the species' range. Second, one of the major aspects of life history of this fish is its accrual and use of fat stores. This work will examine the genetic and environmental control of fat accrual and may lead to the use of fish models instead of mice as a less expensive system for studying some aspects of the control of fat metabolism.//