Collaborative Research: The impacts of mating system variation on ecological performance and evolutionary diversification in a clade of marine snails

目前，关于海洋生物个体、种群和物种内部和之间的交配系统如何变化，几乎一无所知。事实上，表征海洋中的交配系统变化及其对基本生态和进化模式和过程的影响，现在是一项挑战，其重要性可能与过去三十年来许多海洋生态学家一直在进行的种群连通性研究同等重要。核壳螺属的蜗牛是重要的潮间带捕食者，为探索交配系统如何控制关键的生态和进化过程和模式提供了一个特殊的模式系统。通过整合种群和行为生态学的见解和生活史理论，结合遗传、实验和系统发育方法，该项目将对交配系统变异对海洋系统生态和进化动力学的影响产生新的见解。该项目将显著提高我们对海洋系统中交配系统变化如何影响个体、种群和物种的理解，对更好地预测气候变化、栖息地碎片化和捕捞等过程将如何影响种群动态、物种形成和生态系统功能具有重要意义。与一些正在进行的项目合作，该项目将培训许多代表不足的学生、科学家和教师，使他们掌握现代生态学、遗传学和系统发生学。此外，该项目通过与探索博物馆的合作伙伴关系、NOAA扩大西海岸海洋保护区和外展计划以及加州大学戴维斯分校和联合国儿童基金会的科学传播计划，与多个教育项目相结合。在世界范围内，人为和自然过程正在迅速改变环境变化的模式，影响个人、种群、物种和群落的特征，并最终威胁到生物多样性和生态系统的功能。这些威胁通常被放在以下背景下看待：(A)种群数量或密度的减少；(B)人口和遗传联系的变化；以及(C)Allee效应，即当地密度的减少限制了交配成功。虽然研究较少--特别是在海洋系统中--但环境扰动也可以迅速改变种群的交配系统。许多研究表明，交配系统的种内和种间变异对广泛的生态和进化过程(例如，扩散、种群动态、生活史多样性和物种形成)具有重大影响，这些过程可以深刻地影响海洋生态系统的可持续性。研究人员之前由美国国家科学基金会资助的工作首次在任何海洋生物中确立了交配系统强烈影响捕食性海洋蜗牛Nucella ostrina的后代大小变化和繁殖亲和力。这项工作提出了有关海洋生物生态的几个主要问题。通过田间实验、交配试验、遗传分析和明确的系统发育比较，本项目将全面研究交配系统在(1)产生生态相关性状变异；(2)驱动生殖隔离；(3)形成生活史变异的宏观生态模式中所发挥的基本作用。这项研究将扩大我们对交配系统在海洋生物生态学和多样性中所起关键作用的理解，并为理解种群人口和交配系统的变化如何影响短期种群动态和对环境变化的长期反应提供基础。

At present, virtually nothing is known about how mating systems vary within and among individuals, populations, and species of marine organisms. Indeed, characterizing mating system variation in the sea, and its effects on fundamental ecological and evolutionary patterns and processes, now represents a challenge perhaps equal in importance to the study of population connectivity that has occupied many marine ecologists for the last three decades. Snails in the genus Nucella are important intertidal predators and provide an exceptional model system for exploring how mating systems control critical ecological and evolutionary processes and patterns. By integrating insights from population and behavioral ecology, and life-history theory, combined with genetic, experimental, and phylogenetic approaches, this project will generate novel insights into the impacts of mating system variation on the ecological and evolutionary dynamics of marine systems. This project will significantly advance our understanding of how mating system variation in marine systems influences individuals, populations, and species, with important implications for better predicting how processes such as climate change, habitat fragmentation, and harvesting will influence population dynamics, speciation, and ecosystem function. In collaboration with a number of ongoing programs this project will train numerous under-represented students, scientists, and teachers in modern ecology, genetics, and phylogenetics. In addition, the project interfaces with multiple educational programs through partnerships with the Exploratorium, NOAA's expansion of west coast marine sanctuaries and outreach programs, and science communications programs at UC Davis and UNCW. Worldwide, anthropogenic and natural processes are rapidly modifying patterns of environmental variation that affect the traits of individuals, populations, species, and communities, and that ultimately threaten both biodiversity and ecosystem functioning. These threats are often viewed in the context of (a) reductions in population size or density; (b) changes in demographic and genetic connectivity; and (c) Allee effects, where reduced local densities limit mating success. Though less-well studied - especially in marine systems - environmental perturbations can also rapidly alter the mating systems of populations. Numerous studies show that intra- and inter-specific variation in mating systems has major impacts on a broad spectrum of ecological and evolutionary processes (e.g., dispersal, population dynamics, life-history diversity, and speciation), that can profoundly influence the sustainability of marine ecosystems. The investigators' previous NSF-funded work established, for the first time in any marine organism, that the mating system strongly influences both offspring size variation and reproductive compatibilities in the predatory marine snail Nucella ostrina. This work raised several major questions regarding the ecology of marine organisms. Through field experiments, mating trials, genetic analyses, and phylogenetically explicit comparisons, the present project will comprehensively examine the fundamental roles that mating systems play in (1) generating ecologically relevant trait variation; (2) driving reproductive isolation; and (3) shaping macro-ecological patterns of life-history variation. This research will broaden our understanding of the critical role that mating systems play in the ecology and diversification of marine organisms, and provide the foundation for understanding how changes in population demographics and mating systems can influence both short term population dynamics and longer term responses to environmental change.