COLLABORATIVE RESEARCH: Natural Selection on Growth and Locomotor Development in Eastern Cottontail Rabbits (Sylvilagus floridanus)

人生的少年阶段可能特别危险。未成熟的动物必须在与成年动物相同的环境中生存，尽管身体较小，肌肉较弱，以及其他与生长有关的体能限制。因为，根据定义，青少年还没有繁殖，人们应该期待有强有力的机制选择，这些机制可能会抵消这些与年龄相关的身体表现限制，允许个体达到成年，繁殖，从而保持进化的健康。这项拟议的研究将结合东部棉尾兔(Sylvilagus Floridanus)肌肉骨骼生长、体能和存活率的指标，明确测试关于哺乳动物生长和发育适应性的广泛假设。东方棉尾鱼在三周大的时候就独立于它们的母亲，在生命的第一年经历了很大的捕食压力，这使它们成为解决这些问题的理想物种。这项研究收集的基本数据将提供更多关于自然选择如何作用于肌肉骨骼生长和发育以应对捕食的理解，为进化过程本身提供了新的见解。本研究分为三个具体目标。首先，研究人员将收集东部棉尾肌肉骨骼生长的详细测量数据，包括肌肉和骨骼力量的详细数据。其次，研究人员将对幼兔和成年兔的身体表现能力(即加速和冲刺能力)进行量化测量。最后，无线电跟踪数据将与关于栖息地大小、栖息地质量和捕食风险的生态数据相结合，以经验地记录幼兔的生存。这些数据将使研究人员能够全面检查肌肉骨骼解剖、身体表现和进化适应性之间的联系，以正式测试被认为促进青少年生存的特征的适应性意义。该项目将在参与的三个机构之间建立跨学科合作，帮助在俄亥俄州东北部建立一个研究和培训网络。基金还将为本科生提供学习活体生物力学和田间生态学方法的机会。这样的机会很少见，是学生的主要教育资源。在这个项目中收集的骨骼材料将捐赠给当地的博物馆和学校，提供有价值的公共教育和研究工具。最后，在这项研究中产生的生存估计可以用来为俄亥俄州自然资源部的政策决策提供信息，以便在整个俄亥俄州建立可接受的狩猎和诱捕数字。

The juvenile stage of life can be particularly perilous. Immature animals must survive in the same environments as adults despite smaller body size, weaker muscles and other growth-related limitations on physical ability. Because, by definition, juveniles have yet to reproduce, one should expect strong selection for mechanisms that could potentially offset these age-related limits on physical performance, allowing individuals to reach adulthood, reproduce, and thus maintain evolutionary fitness. The proposed research will combine measures of musculoskeletal growth, physical performance, and survivorship in eastern cottontail rabbits (Sylvilagus floridanus) to explicitly test broad-scale hypotheses about the adaptive nature of mammalian growth and development. Eastern cottontails are independent of their mothers by three weeks of age and experience high predation pressure during the first year of life, making them an ideal species in which to address these issues. The fundamental data collected in this study will provide a greater understanding of how natural selection operates on musculoskeletal growth and development in response to predation, providing novel insight into the process of evolution itself. This research is organized into three specific aims. First, researchers will collect detailed measures of musculoskeletal growth in eastern cottontails, including detailed data on muscle and bone strength. Second, the investigators will generate quantitative measures of physical performance ability (i.e., acceleration and sprinting capacities) in juvenile and adult rabbits. Finally, radio-tracking data will be combined with ecological data on home range size, habitat quality and predation risk to empirically document survivorship in juvenile rabbits. These data will allow the researchers to holistically examine associations among musculoskeletal anatomy, physical performance and evolutionary fitness, as required to formally test the adaptive significance of the traits thought to promote juvenile survival.This project will create interdisciplinary collaborations among the three institutions involved, helping to foster a network of research and training in northeastern Ohio. Funding will also provide opportunities for undergraduates to learn in vivo biomechanical and field ecology methods. Such opportunities are rare and constitute a major educational resource for students. Skeletal materials gathered during this project will be donated to local museums and schools, providing valuable public educational and research tools. Finally, the survivorship estimates generated during this research can be used to inform the policy decisions of the Ohio Department of Natural Resources in order to establish acceptable numbers for hunting and trapping throughout Ohio.