Function-valued Traits in Natural Populations: Variation, Selection, and Evolution

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An award has been made to Washington State University under the direction of Richard Gomulkiewicz and Patrick Carter to develop ways to analyze complex traits. Other personnel involved in the project are: Jay Beder (University of Wisconsin, Milwaukee), George Gilchrist (College of William and Mary),Nancy Heckman (University of British Columbia),Joel Kingsolver and Steve Marron(University of North Carolina),Mark Kirkpatrick (University of Texas), Scott Pletcher (Baylor College of Medicine),Johanna Schmitt (Brown University). Biologists have a rich array of quantitative tools for analyzing the genetics and evolution of traits, provided the traits can be described by one or a few measurements. However, many complex traits of central importance in basic and applied biology are defined quantitatively by mathematical functions, and few methods exist for their analysis. These function-valued traits include gene expression profiles, life history patterns, two- and three-dimensional morphological shapes, and phenotypic responses to continuous environmental gradients. Empiricists are becoming increasingly interested in function-valued traits, but their studies have generated an expanding range of unresolved practical and theoretical questions. To address these issues, this award will integrate approaches from several disciplines, including statistics, mathematical modeling, and biology. Specifically, the work will lead to a comprehensive framework of statistical tools and mathematical models for analyzing function-valued traits. The framework will be used to address major questions in seven model empirical systems that span a broad spectrum of natural, field, and laboratory systems. These investigations will produce an extensive set of empirical results for new and existing data, statistical methods, and mathematical theory. An easy to use software package will also be developed for biologists whose research involves questions about variation, selection, and evolution of function-valued traits.Expected broader impacts: Methodologies developed in this proposal can be applied to any area of biology concerned with variation of complex traits. Besides evolutionary biology, this includes applied fields such as medical genetics, agriculture, wildlife management, global change, and conservation genetics. The scope of this project would include molecular, quantitative, and ecological genetics in plant and animal systems, statistical analysis, and mathematical modeling. As such, the proposed crosscutting research and training strategy will provide an outstanding opportunity to train undergraduates, graduate students, post-docs, and established researchers who span a wide range of scientific fields and approaches in virtually all the skills of contemporary evolutionary biology.