The Contribution of Genetic and Environmental Maternal Effects to Life History Evolution

母体环境可能会影响后代的性状表达。这些母性效应可以改变进化变化，以响应选择、造成滞后时间、负面或周期性反应，或缺乏变化。此外，如果以遗传为基础，母体环境效应本身可能有助于适应性进化。尽管理论和经验结果证明了母体效应对进化的潜在贡献，但我们几乎对它们在自然人口中的流行情况一无所知。这项拟议的研究解决了我们知识中的这一差距。之前对草本植物美国风铃的研究表明，母体效应有助于维持一年和两年一次的生活史。使用数量遗传学方法，将评估母亲的遗传和环境对生活史的影响。通过将这一方法应用到两个环境中，母体环境效应对适应性进化的明确贡献将被量化。研究母体效应和对选择的反应之间的相互作用将增加我们对进化中多代过程的理解，以及环境在改变进化变化中的作用。了解适应性进化的机制对于预测对环境变化的反应至关重要。

9974126GallowayMaternal environments may influence the expression of traits in their offspring. These maternal effects can alter evolutionary change in response to selection, creating lag times, negative or cyclical responses, or lack of change. In addition, if genetically based, maternal environmental effects may themselves contribute to adaptive evolution. Despite theoretical and empirical results demonstrating the potential contribution of maternal effects to evolution, we know almost nothing about their prevalence in natural populations. The proposed research addresses this gap in our knowledge. Previous work with Campanula americana, an herbaceous plant, suggests that maternal effects contribute to the maintenance of annual and biennial life histories. Using a quantitative genetic approach, maternal genetic and environmental effects on life history will be evaluated. By carrying this approach to two environments, the explicit contribution of maternal environmental effects to adaptive evolution will be quantified. Investigating the interaction between maternal effects and response to selection will increase our understanding of multigenerational processes in evolution and the role of the environment in modifying evolutionary change. Understanding mechanisms of adaptive evolution is central for predicting response to environmental change.