DISSERTATION RESEARCH: The consequences of natural and anthropogenic geographic range expansion

今天的一个主要科学挑战是了解生物入侵对环境变化的影响。拟议中的研究使用了海洋蛤和蜗牛的化石和现代数据，比较了物种的进化变化，这些物种沿着它们的本土海岸扩大了地理范围，而入侵物种的变化则在人类的帮助下（意外或有意）跨越了海洋盆地。这项研究将评估生物学特性，可能会赋予一个扩张优势（例如，身体大小），分析壳形状的变化之间的来源和殖民地地区在本地和入侵的扩张，并通过实验评估遗传进化的贡献，这种壳形状variation.Finally，这项研究旨在了解生物入侵海洋系统通过比较？本地人？物种扩张，当地人接触到新的气候和新的生态群落。尽管入侵物种的负面影响，他们可能提供一个窗口，快速进化适应发生在最近殖民地区在当代的时间尺度。这项研究有可能深入了解物种对过去气候变化的进化反应，并可能帮助我们预测物种如何适应当前气候变化下的扩张。

A major scientific challenge today is understanding the consequences of biological invasions in response to environmental change. The proposed research uses fossil and modern data on marine clams and snails to compare evolutionary changes in species that have expanded geographic ranges along their native coasts with changes in invasive species that have crossed ocean basins with (accidental or intentional) human assistance. This research will evaluate biological characteristics that may confer an expansion advantage (for example, body size), analyze changes in shell shape between the source and colonized regions in both native and invasive expansions, and experimentally assess the contribution of genetic evolution to such shell shape variation.Ultimately, this research seeks to understand biological invasions in marine systems through comparisons with ?native? species expansions, where the natives are coming into contact with novel climates and new ecological communities. Despite the negative consequences of invasive species, they may offer a window into the rapid evolutionary adaptation that occurs in a recently colonized region over contemporary timescales. The proposed research has the potential to give insight into the evolutionary responses of species to past climate change and may help us predict how species adapt in response to expansions under current climate change.