Ecology of Darwin's Finches on the Galapagos Islands

加拉帕戈斯群岛达尔文雀的生态

• 批准号: 9615383
• 负责人: Peter Grant
• 金额: $ 41万
• 依托单位: Princeton University
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Continuing Grant
• 财政年份: 1997
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 1997-03-01 至 2004-02-29
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=9615383&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: Ecology; Darwin; Finches; Galapagos; Islands

9615383 Grant The goal of the proposed research is to understand the processes involved in speciation and adaptive radiation. It will be carried out on the small island of Daphne Major in the Galapagos archipelago. Previous research has shown that the three species of Darwin's Finches on the island occasionally hybridize. Over the past 20 years almost all individuals on the island have been uniquely banded, and pedigree analysis has shown that hybrids may survive and breed as well as or better than the parental species at certain times. The proposed research will build on the long-term data set to complete a demographic study of the three cohorts of all species and hybrids produced in 1983, 1984 and 1987. These will be the first complete analyses of a cohort of hybrids, possibly for any organism in nature. The study will involve using molecular methods to make unambiguous assignments of parentage, and ecological methods for determining the causes of variation in the fates of individuals. The complete data will allow a measurement of the long-term genetic fitness consequences of hybridization, and will allow modeling of the long-term dynamics of these interacting species. This research is important for understanding the origin and maintenance of biodiversity. Speciation is a key process for generating biological diversity, yet little is known about the ecological and microevolutionary forces responsible for speciation. The proposed research takes advantage of an exceptionally favorable situation for directly investigating some of the forces at work in the final stages of speciation when hybridization is still possible. For conservation biology, the research will help to illuminate the ecological factors that influence genetic variation in small and potentially endangered populations.

9615383格兰特拟议研究的目标是了解物种形成和适应性辐射所涉及的过程。 它将在加拉帕戈斯群岛的小岛达芙妮梅杰进行。先前的研究表明，岛上的三种达尔文雀偶尔会杂交。在过去的20年里，岛上几乎所有的个体都有独特的条纹，系谱分析表明，杂交种在某些时候可以生存和繁殖，甚至比亲本种更好。拟议的研究将建立在长期数据集的基础上，以完成对1983年、1984年和1987年生产的所有物种和杂交种的三个队列的人口统计学研究。 这将是第一次对一组杂交种进行完整的分析，可能是自然界中的任何生物。这项研究将涉及使用分子方法来明确亲子关系，以及确定个体命运变化原因的生态学方法。完整的数据将允许测量杂交的长期遗传适应性后果，并将允许这些相互作用的物种的长期动态建模。 这项研究对于了解生物多样性的起源和维持非常重要。物种形成是产生生物多样性的一个关键过程，但对负责物种形成的生态和微进化力量知之甚少。拟议中的研究利用了一个非常有利的情况，直接调查在物种形成的最后阶段，杂交仍然是可能的一些力量。对于保护生物学，这项研究将有助于阐明影响小型和潜在濒危种群遗传变异的生态因素。