The Expression and Impact of Parent-offspring Conflict in Natural Populations of Least Killifish

当母亲在整个妊娠期为后代提供营养时，后代和母亲有冲突的利益。 母亲应该将营养均匀地分配给所有的后代，但每个后代应该为自己胁迫尽可能多的营养。 这个项目将研究是否不同程度的冲突，产生不同程度的相关性在一个母亲？的育雏，可以解释在自然界中看到的巨大不同水平的母亲对后代的投资和不同种群在怀孕期间的基因表达模式。 该项目还将研究这种冲突是否可以通过增加母亲的营养来改善，以及这种冲突是否可以解释在来自不同种群的个体之间的杂交中观察到的大量不存活胚胎的原因。母亲和后代的利益冲突被认为是哺乳动物胎盘、遗传印记和活产动物迅速多样化等特征的原因。 这个项目将解决几个这些假设的连接在同一个系统，从而阐明一个过程是否可以提供一个统一的解释，许多看似不同的功能在性质上。 它还将为高中生、教师、本科生和博士后研究员提供培训机会，包括科学领域代表性不足的群体。

When mothers provide nutrition for offspring throughout gestation, offspring and mother have conflicting interests. Mothers ought to distribute nutrition evenly to all offspring, but each offspring ought to coerce as much nutrition as possible for itself. This project will examine whether different levels of conflict, produced by different levels of relatedness within a mother?s brood, can account for the vastly different levels of maternal investment in offspring seen in nature and for different patterns of gene expression during gestation in different populations. The project will also examine whether this conflict can be ameliorated by enhancing the nutrition available to mothers, and whether this conflict accounts for the high number of inviable embryos observed in crosses between individuals from different populations.The conflicting interests of mothers and offspring are postulated to be responsible for features such as the mammalian placenta, genetic imprinting, and the rapid diversification of live-bearing animals. This project will address several of these postulated connections in the same system and thereby illuminate whether one process can offer a unifying explanation for many seemingly disparate features in nature. It will also provide training opportunities for high schoolers, teachers, undergraduates, and a postdoctoral fellow, including groups under-represented in science.