RAPID: Behavioral Plasticity and Hybridization of Young Species

RAPID：年轻物种的行为可塑性和杂交

• 批准号: 1543593
• 负责人: Susan Foster
• 金额: $ 1.49万
• 依托单位: Clark University
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Standard Grant
• 财政年份: 2015
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2015-08-01 至 2016-07-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=1543593&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: RAPID; Behavioral; Plasticity; Hybridization; Young

Biological diversity is decreasing at an exceptionally rapid rate in response to human modification of the environment. One outcome of human activity is increasing productivity in aquatic environments, often leading to changes in growth rates of aquatic organisms including the threespine stickleback fish. This small fish has served as a model for understanding how newly-arisen species have evolved and how they maintain their distinctiveness. The research proposed here will evaluate the threat posed to pairs of species that have arisen in a small number of lakes in the Pacific Northwest, focusing on possible shifts in body size and behavior. The research has significant conservation implications not just for stickleback but also for understanding human-caused environmental changes leading to size and behavioral shifts, and, ultimately, interbreeding between species and loss of biodiversity. The research will include undergraduates and graduate students in field and laboratory research. The findings will be incorporated into teaching at the undergraduate level at Clark University and into outreach activities involving elementary school through high school students in the largely impoverished and minority community in which Clark University is located.The initial stages of speciation are difficult to capture, but the threespine stickleback fish (Gasterosteus aculeatus) from the Pacific Northwest has served as a model system of the speciation process. Replicated pairs of species have revealed in detail the genetic, morphological, and behavioral transitions associated with divergence. Sometimes, the initial stages of speciation are mediated by plastic shifts in behavior and morphology, when populations are exposed to novel environments. Plastic transitions may be followed by genetic accommodation, leading to evolutionary differentiation of the populations, and to stable reproductive isolation. In some instances however, reproductive isolation can be maintained by differential use of habitats in secondary sympatry, without significant genetic differentiation, leading to the possibility that changing environments will facilitate hybridization and loss of closely related species. This is a possibility that has not been explored in the species pairs of G. aculeatus. Differences in body size are important mediators of reproductive isolation between members of the pairs. This research will evaluate the possibility that differences in body size between the species pairs is decreasing due to increasing aquatic productivity and that this could lead to hybridization of the three remaining benthic-limnetic species pairs in southern British Columbia. The timing of the research is critical, as evolution in this system is known to be rapid, as is the environmental change that could cause its demise. These species pairs have offered unparalleled insight into the mechanisms of ecological speciation, and their loss through hybridization will conceal the numerous biological signatures of early divergence they have provided. All data will be archived in the Dryad Digital Repository.

由于人类对环境的改变，生物多样性正在以极快的速度减少。人类活动的结果之一是提高水生环境的生产力，通常会导致包括三刺棘鱼在内的水生生物的生长速度发生变化。 这种小鱼已成为了解新出现的物种如何进化以及它们如何保持其独特性的模型。 这里提出的研究将评估对太平洋西北部少数湖泊中出现的成对物种构成的威胁，重点关注体型和行为可能发生的变化。 这项研究不仅对棘鱼具有重要的保护意义，而且对于了解人类造成的环境变化导致体型和行为变化，并最终导致物种之间的杂交和生物多样性丧失具有重要意义。 该研究将包括本科生和研究生进行实地和实验室研究。 研究结果将被纳入克拉克大学本科生的教学，以及克拉克大学所在的贫困和少数民族社区中从小学生到高中生的推广活动。物种形成的初始阶段很难捕捉到，但来自太平洋西北地区的三刺刺鱼（Gasterosteus aculeatus）已成为物种形成过程的模型系统。复制的物种对详细揭示了与分化相关的遗传、形态和行为转变。有时，当种群暴露于新环境时，物种形成的初始阶段是由行为和形态的可塑性变化介导的。 塑料转变之后可能会发生遗传调节，导致种群的进化分化和稳定的生殖隔离。 然而，在某些情况下，可以通过对次级同源栖息地的不同利用来维持生殖隔离，而无需显着的遗传分化，从而导致环境变化可能会促进密切相关物种的杂交和丧失。 这种可能性尚未在棘齿G. aculeatus 物种对中被探索过。体型的差异是成对成员之间生殖隔离的重要调节因素。 这项研究将评估由于水产生产力的提高而导致物种对之间体型差异减小的可能性，这可能导致不列颠哥伦比亚省南部剩余的三个底栖-湖沼物种对的杂交。 研究的时机至关重要，因为众所周知，该系统的进化非常迅速，环境变化也可能导致其灭亡。这些物种对为生态物种形成机制提供了无与伦比的洞察力，它们因杂交而消失将掩盖它们所提供的早期分化的众多生物学特征。所有数据都将存档在 Dryad 数字存储库中。