CAREER: ECO-EVOLUTIONARY DYNAMICS: WHAT ARE THE CAUSAL LINKS BETWEEN POPULATION DENSITY, NATURAL SELECTION AND PHENOTYPIC CHANGE?

职业：生态进化动力学：人口密度、自然选择和表型变化之间的因果关系是什么？

• 批准号: 1350107
• 负责人: Renee Duckworth
• 金额: $ 73.7万
• 依托单位: University of Arizona
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Standard Grant
• 财政年份: 2014
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2014-08-15 至 2021-09-30
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=1350107&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: CAREER; ECO; EVOLUTIONARY; DYNAMICS; WHAT

Fostering the development of early-career teacher-scholars strengthens the nation's research capacity while contributing to an educated workforce capable of making complex decisions. This CAREER project integrates interdisciplinary research and creative educational opportunities to gain novel insights into the causal links between evolutionary change and population ecology. Natural selection, phenotypic change, and population size are often related, but we know little about the causes that underlie these relationships. The research takes advantage of rapid evolutionary change observed in the invasive western bluebird to investigate these causal relationships, and engages high school, undergraduate, and graduate students to think critically in order to solve problems and answer questions. Western bluebirds depend on successional habitat and must continually colonize new areas to survive. In previous work, the investigator discovered rapid shifts in aggression, population density, and natural selection that accompanied recolonization cycles. Newly colonized populations have low density, high aggression, and positive selection on aggression; older populations have high density, low aggression, and strong negative selection on aggression. These recurring cycles provide a unique opportunity to investigate the causal links between population density, natural selection and phenotypic change. The investigator will combine several approaches to determine these links: experimental manipulation of population density; observations of how changing density correlates with aggression; experimental manipulation of food availability and survival to identify changes in aggression and population size; and estimation of quantitative genetic parameters related to aggressiveness. Results will be integrated to resolve the causal links between evolutionary (selection for aggression) and ecological (population density) changes in these populations. This system is exceptionally amenable to manipulation of ecological interactions through the provision of nesting boxes, and the need for western bluebirds to recolonize new areas requires rapid evolutionary change. The ability to study populations at different stages of a colonization cycle provides diverse contexts to examine the links between components of an eco-evolutionary feedback loop. A particularly novel broader impact of this research is the engagement of cognitively delayed students to help them gain important life skills. Outreach to and collaboration with citizen scientists, the Confederated Salish and Kootenai Tribes, conservation groups, wildlife officials, and landowners will significantly broaden educational opportunities and the dissemination of research results.

促进早期教师-学者的发展可以加强国家的研究能力，同时有助于培养一支能够做出复杂决策的受过教育的劳动力队伍。这个职业项目融合了跨学科研究和创造性的教育机会，以获得对进化变化和种群生态之间因果联系的新见解。自然选择、表型变化和种群大小往往是相关的，但我们对这些关系背后的原因知之甚少。这项研究利用在入侵的西方蓝知更鸟身上观察到的快速进化变化来研究这些因果关系，并邀请高中生、本科生和研究生进行批判性思考，以解决问题和回答问题。西方蓝鸟依赖于演替的栖息地，必须不断地殖民新的地区才能生存。在以前的工作中，研究人员发现了伴随着重新殖民周期的攻击性、人口密度和自然选择的快速变化。新殖民种群具有低密度、高攻击性和对攻击行为的正选择；老年种群具有高密度、低攻击性和较强的攻击负选择。这些循环周期为研究种群密度、自然选择和表型变化之间的因果联系提供了一个独特的机会。研究人员将结合几种方法来确定这些联系：实验操作种群密度；观察密度变化如何与攻击性相关；实验操作食物可获得性和存活率以确定攻击性和种群数量的变化；以及估计与攻击性相关的数量遗传参数。结果将被整合，以解决这些种群的进化(选择攻击性)和生态(种群密度)变化之间的因果联系。这个系统特别容易通过提供筑巢盒子来操纵生态相互作用，而西方蓝鸟重新殖民新地区的需要需要快速的进化变化。研究殖民周期不同阶段的种群的能力为考察生态进化反馈循环各组成部分之间的联系提供了不同的背景。这项研究的一个特别新颖的更广泛的影响是，让认知迟缓的学生参与进来，帮助他们获得重要的生活技能。与公民科学家、南部萨利什部落和库特奈部落、保护团体、野生动物官员和土地所有者的接触和合作将极大地扩大教育机会和研究成果的传播。