Long-Term Investigation of Evolution in a Community Context

了解社区内物种所经历的多样性和同时的压力可能会提供从物种之间的成对相互作用研究中不容易收集的见解。所有物种都是多物种群落的一部分，它们表现出的特征是由群落成员之间直接和间接相互作用网络产生的选择压力以及非生物因素的影响沿着形成的。来自多个来源的选择性压力通常被称为“扩散压力”。“在拟议的工作中，将探讨已提出的几个标准，以确定整个社区施加的扩散选择。 这些标准在这里被简要地概括为：多个社区成员作用的性状之间的遗传相关性，一个物种改变与其他社区成员相互作用的可能性或强度的影响，以及性状值和适合度之间的关系存在非加性效应;这种非加性应该是由多个物种施加的选择性效应的组合引起的。假定的选择剂的实验领域的操作相结合的观察人口数据和温室杂交实验在这个长期的研究中的不同代理人作用于野生萝卜花色。 这项研究是为数不多的几项实验性研究之一，这些研究考察了长时间内和该领域多个相互作用者对选择的反应。因此，它提供了罕见的见解性状进化和冲突的选择领域的设置。本提案将培养本科生和一名研究生。在先前的赠款中，学生和专业人士在所有阶段-本科生，研究生和博士后得到指导，并在发表的作品的作者。其中许多人（6/9）是妇女，所有妇女都继续从事科学或科学教育。总的来说，该实验室在指导一系列科学领域代表性不足的群体方面有着良好的记录，正如提案中所总结的那样。

Understanding the diverse and simultaneous pressures experienced by species within a community may provide insights not readily gathered from the study of pair-wise interactions between species. All species are part of multi-species communities and the traits they express are shaped by selective pressures generated by the web of direct and indirect interactions among community members, along with the effects of abiotic factors. Selective pressures from multiple sources are often termed 'diffuse.' In the proposed work, several criteria that have been proposed to identify diffuse selection exerted by whole communities will be explored. These criteria are summarized briefly here as: the genetic correlation between traits acted on by multiple community members, the effects of one species that alter the likelihood or intensity of interactions with other community members, and the presence of non-additive effects on the relationship between trait values and fitness; this non-additivity should be caused by the combination of selective effects imposed by multiple species. Experimental field manipulations of putative selective agents are combined with observational demographic data and with greenhouse crossing experiments in this long-term study of the diverse agents acting on flower color in the wild radish Raphanus sativus. This study is one of only a handful that examines experimentally the response to selection over long time periods and from multiple interactors in the field. As such it provides rare insights into trait evolution and conflicting selection in field settings. This proposal will train undergraduates and a graduate student. In the prior grant, students and professionals at all stages - undergrad, graduate student and post-doc were mentored and were authors on the published work. Many of these (6/9) were women, and all of the women have continued in science or science education. Overall, the lab has had a strong record of mentoring a range of under-represented groups in science, as summarized in the proposal.