CAREER: The physiology and genetics of adaptation in a complex environment

职业：复杂环境中适应的生理学和遗传学

• 批准号: 1505247
• 负责人: Kristi Montooth
• 金额: $ 68.34万
• 依托单位: University of Nebraska-Lincoln
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Continuing Grant
• 财政年份: 2014
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2014-08-16 至 2019-04-30
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=1505247&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: CAREER; physiology; genetics; adaptation; complex

Organisms have a remarkable capacity to respond physiologically to their environment to maintain survival and health even in times of stress. This research program investigates the physiological responses of the model genetic organism Drosophila melanogaster to a complex environment. D. melanogaster recently expanded its range out of tropical Africa and into higher latitudes with more variable thermal environments. At the same time, D. melanogaster evolved a remarkable tolerance of ethanol and acetic acid in its fermenting fruit habitat. The natural history of this fruit fly allows for an investigation of how organisms are likely to respond to a complex and increasingly variable climate. In particular, this research will test hypotheses about how changes in cell membranes and metabolism maintain health, performance and fitness in a thermally-variable and alcohol-rich niche. The experiments investigate changes that occur within the lifespan of organisms to deal with the environment -- plastic physiologies -- and changes that have evolved to fit organisms to their environment via the process of natural selection physiological adaptations. The goal of this research is to identify the interactions among multiple genes that underlie these plastic and adaptive responses to a complex environment.The proposed research will further our knowledge in areas identified by the Frontiers in Evolutionary Biology workshop (NSF 2005), provide insight on genetic, cellular and physiological mechanisms of environmental tolerance, and develop new methods for associating physiological traits with complex genetic variation at multiple genes. Data will be made publicly available using the DRYAD database (http://datadryad.org/), and genetic lines will be made available upon request after publication. Genetic lines judged to be of use for many labs will be placed in the Bloomington Drosophila Stock Center (http://flystocks.bio.indiana.edu/).The educational objectives draw on the PI's history of integrating her research and teaching. Objective 1 develops a novel curriculum for college-level biology classes that uses case studies to teach skills in information literacy, writing, quantitative thinking, and data representation. Curricula will be deposited in the publicly available database of the NSF National Center for Case Study Teaching (NCCST; http://sciencecases.lib.buffalo.edu/cs/collection/). Objective 2 will create an educational multimedia display to promote public literacy in the life sciences. Objective 3 advances a research training program for students that integrates genetics, evolution, and cellular and organismal physiology, and includes minority and female students.

生物体具有对环境做出生理反应的非凡能力，即使在压力下也能维持生存和健康。本研究项目旨在研究模式遗传生物果蝇（Drosophila melanogaster）对复杂环境的生理反应。D.黑腹果蝇最近将其活动范围从非洲热带地区扩展到具有更多变热环境的高纬度地区。同时，D.黑腹果蝇在其发酵的果实生境中进化出对乙醇和乙酸的显著耐受性。这种果蝇的自然历史允许调查生物体如何可能对复杂和日益多变的气候做出反应。特别是，这项研究将测试关于细胞膜和新陈代谢的变化如何在热变和富含酒精的生态位中保持健康，性能和健身的假设。这些实验调查了生物体在生命周期内为应对环境而发生的变化-可塑性生理学-以及通过自然选择生理适应过程使生物体适应环境而进化的变化。这项研究的目的是确定多个基因之间的相互作用，这些基因是对复杂环境的可塑性和适应性反应的基础。拟议的研究将进一步加深我们在进化生物学前沿研讨会上确定的领域的知识（NSF 2005），提供了对环境耐受性的遗传、细胞和生理机制的见解，并开发新的方法，将生理性状与多个基因的复杂遗传变异联系起来。数据将通过DRYAD数据库（http：//datadryad.org/）公开提供，遗传品系将在发表后应要求提供。被认为对许多实验室有用的遗传系将被放置在布卢明顿果蝇库存中心（http：//flystocks.bio.indiana.edu/）。教育目标借鉴了PI将其研究和教学相结合的历史。目标1为大学生物课程开发一个新的课程，使用案例研究来教授信息素养，写作，定量思维和数据表示方面的技能。课程将存放在NSF国家案例研究教学中心（NCCST; http：//sciencecases.lib.buffalo.edu/cs/collection/）的公开数据库中。目标2将建立一个教育性多媒体展示，以提高公众对生命科学的认识。目标3为学生提供研究培训计划，整合遗传学，进化，细胞和生物生理学，包括少数民族和女性学生。