POWRE: The Contribution of Parental Effects to Life History Evolution in Campanula americana

一个人的表型除了受到自身的影响外，还可能受到父母的基因和环境的影响。在草本植物美洲铃兰中，发芽的时间决定了个体是一年生还是二年生。拟议的研究将评估亲本效应的潜力，遗传和环境，影响发芽时间，从而影响该物种的生活史变异。在这一POWRE提案中，Laura Galloway将通过在受控和自然条件下的一系列母系和父系环境（光和营养）下生长的种子，评估亲代环境对种子萌发模式的影响。她还将确定影响发芽模式的特定母体特征的潜力。特别是，母体开花时间可能影响结果物候，进而可能影响后代发芽的模式。并且，她将测量自然种群中发芽时间和适合度之间的关系，以评估亲本效应对个体成功的重要性。这项工作将有助于确定是否有必要对种群进行一代以上的跟踪，以预测对选择的反应模式。这个POWRE奖允许加洛韦博士通过在一个新的模型系统（美洲风铃）中探索新的问题（母体效应的进化后果）来扩展她的研究计划。这将有助于她在一个面向实地的人口生物学研究学科中获得终身职位，在她的机构以前只有男性代表。

9752947 Galloway An individual's phenotype may be influenced by its parents' genes and environment, in addition to its own. In the herbaceous plant Campanula americana, timing of germination determines whether an individual will be an annual or a biennial. The proposed research will evaluate the potential for parental effects, both genetic and environmental, to influence germination time and hence life history variation in this species. In this POWRE proposal, Laura Galloway will evaluate the potential for parental environments to influence patterns of seed germination by growing seeds produced under a range of maternal and paternal environments (light and nutrient) under both controlled and natural conditions. She will also determine the potential for specific maternal characters to influence germination patterns. In particular, maternal flowering time is likely to influence fruiting phenology, and that in turn may affect patterns of offspring germination. And, she will measure the association between germination time and fitness in a natural population to evaluate the importance of parental effects for individual success. This work will help determine whether it is necessary to follow populations for more than one generation to predict patterns of response to selection. This POWRE award permits Dr. Galloway to expand her research program by exploring new questions (evolutionary consequences of maternal effects) in a new model system (Campanula americana). It will help establish her in a tenure-track position, in a discipline of field-oriented population biological research previously represented only by men at her institution.