DISSERTATION RESEARCH: Sex-biased dispersal: mechanisms and consequences in changing environments

生态学家面临的最大挑战之一是准确预测自然界将如何随着时间的推移而变化。随着人类不断改变地貌，了解生物体将如何应对这些变化以及自然界的弹性将是非常重要的。这一领域的科学研究服务于实际目的，用于衡量增长和扩张的潜在成本，同时促进对自然界的基本理解。这个项目将开发一种新的方法来研究生物体如何对变化做出反应，这将为面临广泛环境变化的不同生物体提供更大的细微差别和预测能力。扩散是影响生物体生态和进化的一个重要过程，但个体扩散能力的差异所产生的后果还不是很清楚。物种内扩散变异的一种特别常见的形式发生在物种的雄性和雌性之间，这个项目将调查性别偏见的扩散如何影响集合种群在不断变化的环境中的持久性。作者之前的研究发现，成年雌性和幼年齿形动物，通常被称为蜻蜓和蜻蜓，受到环境的高度限制，而成年雄性经常分散到不适合的栖息地。这表明，在扩散距离和栖息地选择上都存在偏见。为了研究这种不同的扩散行为背后的具体行为机制，将进行相互移植实验。新出现的成年齿类将在人工中饲养，捕获并标记，然后在包含不合适栖息地的中附体中释放。无论栖息地的环境质量如何，在放生地点附近定居有标记的个体，将表明蜻蜓在分散行为上并不挑剔，而是在离家较近的地方定居。这种行为在不断变化的环境中会产生重要的后果。通过将模式、机制和普遍性联系起来，该项目将提供更多证据，证明性别偏见扩散的生态重要性，以及更广泛的个体差异。该项目将通过提供用现场实验测试新开发的模型的机会，极大地促进博士生的培训。调查人员将通过现有的项目向公众展示结果，如星下科学、特拉维斯·奥杜邦协会、首都地区博物学家大师和奥斯汀蝴蝶论坛-这些当地组织致力于提高公众对自然社区的认识。

One of the biggest challenges that ecologists face is making accurate predictions about how the natural world will change over time. As humans continue to alter landscapes, it is important to understand how organisms will respond to these changes and how resilient the natural world will be. Scientific research in this area serves a practical purpose, for gauging the potential costs of growth and expansion, while it advances fundamental understanding of the natural world. This project will develop a novel approach to examine how organisms respond to change that will provide greater nuance and predictive power for a diverse organisms facing wide-ranging environmental change. Dispersal is an important process that affects the ecology and evolution of organisms but the consequences of individual variation in dispersal ability are not well understood. One particularly common form of intraspecific variation in dispersal occurs between males and females of a species, and this project will investigate how sex-biased dispersal affects the persistence of metapopulations in changing environments. Previous studies by the authors have found that adult female and larval odonates, commonly known as dragonflies and damselflies, are highly constrained by their environment, while adult males often dispersed into unsuitable habitat. This suggests that biases exist for both dispersal distance and for habitat choosiness. In order to investigate the specific behavioral mechanisms behind this differing dispersal behavior, a reciprocal transplant experiment will be performed. Emerging adult odonates will be raised in artificial mesocosms, captured and marked, then released at mesocosms containing unsuitable habitat. Settlement of marked individuals close to the release location, regardless of the environmental qualities of that habitat, will suggest that dragonflies are not choosy in their dispersal behavior, but rather settle close to home. This behavior has important consequences in changing environments. By linking pattern, mechanism, and generality, this project will be providing more evidence of the ecological importance of gender-biased dispersal and of individual variation more generally. The project will significantly advance training of a doctoral student by providing the opportunity to test newly-developed models with field experiments. The investigators will present results to the public through existing programs such as Science Under the Stars, Travis Audubon Society, Capital Area Master Naturalists, and the Austin Butterfly Forum - local organizations committed to raising public awareness of natural communities.