CAREER: Quantifying pleiotropy by parallel experimental evolution

该奖项是根据2009年《美国复苏和再投资法案》(公法111-5)资助的。只有极少数突变在特定环境中是有益的，目前还不确定在一个环境中有益的突变将如何影响其他环境中的生物表现。突变的影响可能出现在单一环境中，也可能在许多环境中产生广泛的后果。突变带来的好处的广度通常是未知的，尽管这是理解适应不断变化的环境的基础。该项目将通过研究实验室微观世界中的细菌进化，提高对一个环境的适应与使用其他环境的能力之间的关系的理解。该项目将从细菌种群中收集许多有益的突变体，并精确地量化它们在单一选择性环境中的适应价值。然后将通过评估它们在一系列不同环境条件下对生物体表现的影响来衡量这些突变体的间接影响的范围。分子遗传学和微生物学的当代技术将被用来描述在不断进化的细菌种群中连接遗传学、生理学和生态学的生物网络。遗传学、生物功能和生态学之间的联系没有得到充分的探索，大多数高中和大学的课程都将它们作为独立的学科来教授。然而，允许学生研究行动中的进化并探索单一突变的广泛影响的研究性实验室练习可以促进这些领域整合的跨学科学习。该项目将使数百项这样的研究能够同时进行，分布在许多实验室和教室，每个实验室和教室都将其研究结果存入一个中央数据库。将选择关键类型的突变体，并使用当代基因组技术确定它们的遗传基础，这有望激励实验室和课堂上的进一步研究。

This award is funded under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (Public Law 111-5).Only a rare fraction of mutations is beneficial in a given environment, and it is uncertain how mutations that are beneficial in one environment will influence organismal performance in other environments. The effect of a mutation could appear in a single environment or could have widespread consequences in many environments. The breadth of benefits of mutations is generally unknown, though is fundamental to understanding adaptation to changing environments. This project will improve understanding of the relationship between adaptation to one environment and ability to use other environments through study of bacteria evolving in laboratory microcosms. This project will collect many beneficial mutants from bacterial populations and precisely quantify their adaptive value in a single selective environment. The scope of indirect effects of these mutants then will be measured by evaluating their effects on organismal performance in a range of different environmental conditions. Contemporary techniques of molecular genetics and microbiology will be used to characterize the biological networks that link genetics, physiology, and ecology in the evolving populations of bacteria.Linkages between genetics, organismal function, and ecology are underexplored, and most high school and college curricula teach them as discrete subjects. However, research-based laboratory exercises that allow students to study evolution in action and explore the widespread effects of single mutations can promote interdisciplinary learning in which these fields are integrated. This project will enable hundreds of such studies to be conducted simultaneously, distributed among many laboratories and classrooms, each depositing their findings to a central database. Mutants of key types will be selected and their genetic bases identified using contemporary genomic technology, which promises to inspire further research in the laboratory and classroom alike.