Meeting: SICB 2014 Adaptation or developmental constraint? Uniting evolutionary theory and empirical studies of phenotypic plasticity in Austin, TX.

在每个个体的每一组基因(基因型)上，环境都会对可观察到的特征(或表型)产生影响；这就是表型可塑性。最近，表型可塑性领域被分为两个子领域：第一个领域是进化生物学家的重点，其目标是了解表型可塑性是如何随着时间的推移而演变的；另一个领域是生理学家的重点，其目标是确定基因与环境相互作用的生理机制。本次研讨会有三个目标，旨在弥合这两个子领域。首先，会议将汇集这两个子领域的研究人员，他们本来不会相遇，讨论如何通过实验检验他们各自的理论框架，以及来自一个小组的经验数据如何为另一个小组提供见解。这将有助于我们加深对表型可塑性的成本、收益和局限性的理解，并确定该领域的未来方向。第二个目标是促进这两个分领域的研究人员之间的互动和未来的合作，以带来新的方法和确定新的方向。第三个目标是鼓励早期职业科学家(例如本科生和研究生以及博士后研究人员)和来自代表性不足群体的科学家参与，为他们提供机会接受资深科学家的反馈并确定未来的导师。进化生物学家和生理学家轮流进行的演讲顺序，以及指定的提问和讨论时间，旨在进一步促进跨学科互动。所有讲座的摘要和海报将公开提供，研讨会演讲的论文将发表在《综合与比较生物学》杂志上，以确保研讨会的传播。

On every set of genes in every individual (the genotype), the environment exerts its influence to shape observable traits (or phenotypes); this is phenotypic plasticity. Recently, the field of phenotypic plasticity has been split into two subfields: the first is a focus for evolutionary biologists whose goal is to understand how phenotypic plasticity evolved over time, and the other is a focus for physiologists whose goal is to identify the physiological mechanisms underlying the gene-environment interaction. This symposium has three goals aimed at bridging these two subfields. First, the meeting will bring together researchers from the two subfields who otherwise do not cross paths to discuss how their respective theoretical framework can be tested experimentally and how empirical data from one group can give insights to the other. This will help advance our understanding of the costs, benefits, and limitations of phenotypic plasticity and to identify future direction of this field. The second goal is to foster interaction and future collaboration between researchers from the two subfields to bring new approaches and define new directions. The third goal is to encourage participation from early career scientists (e.g., undergraduate and graduate students and postdoctoral researchers) and scientists from underrepresented groups to provide them with an opportunity to receive feedback from senior scientists and identify future mentors. The sequence of talks, alternating between evolutionary biologists and physiologists, and inclusion of designated time for questions and discussion are designed to further cross-disciplinary interactions. Abstracts from all the talks and posters will be publicly available, and papers from the symposium talks will be published in the Integrative and Comparative Biology journal to ensure the dissemination of the symposium.