LTREB: Reconciling innovation and adaptation during ongoing range expansion

动物目前的适应在多大程度上是由过去的适应、随机事件或当前的必要性决定的？为什么一些物种具有特殊的适应和入侵能力，而它们的近亲却因无法应对环境变化而灭绝？首席研究员将通过研究一种鸟类来解决这些问题，这种鸟类在过去70年里成功地在北美大部分地区定居，获得了任何现存鸟类中最广泛的生态范围，以及使其能够在新环境中生存的一系列不同的喙形态。利用最近发现的产生这种多样性的发育机制，首席调查员提出并测试了一种新的解释，解释了复杂结构(如鸟喙)如何快速和可逆地进化。在过去的20年里，首席调查员与当地牧场主、居民、三个印第安人保留地的部落委员会以及大学生密切合作，在蒙大拿州落基山脉大陆分水岭的两个斜坡上建立了一个独特的研究群体时间序列，跨越数百英里。这项工作得到了广泛的宣传，因为鸟类入侵的性质非常明显，当地媒体建立了良好的联系，以及公众对这一大规模项目的广泛参与。此外，首席调查员将继续利用亚利桑那大学的专业本科生招生计划，培训少数族裔学生以现代科学方法解决物种入侵和适应等现实生活中的生物学问题。

To what extent are current adaptations of animals shaped by past adaptations, random events, or current necessities? Why do some species have exceptional adaptive and invasive abilities while their relatives go extinct unable to cope with environmental change? The principal investigator will address these questions by studying a bird species that over the past seventy years had successfully colonized much of North America, acquiring the widest ecological range of any living bird and a range of diverse beak morphologies that enables it to survive in new environments. Capitalizing on recently discovered developmental mechanisms that produce such diversity, the principal investigator proposes and tests a novel explanation of how complex structures, such as avian beaks, can evolve rapidly and reversibly.Over the last twenty years the principal investigator, in close collaboration with local ranchers, citizens, tribal councils of three Indian reservations, as well as college students, established a unique temporal sequence of study populations that span hundreds of miles on both slopes of the Rocky Mountain Continental Divide in Montana. This work has been broadly advertised because of the highly visible nature of bird invasions, the well-established local media contacts, and wide public involvement in this large-scale project. Further, the principal investigator will continue to capitalize on the specialized undergraduate recruitment program in the University of Arizona to train minority students in modern scientific approaches to real life biological problems of species invasion and adaptation.