Testing the influence of long-term ecological change on evolutionary responses in zooplankton

记录、理解和预测生物体对自然和人为变化的反应是复杂的；有些反应可能是短期的，但另一些可能是进化变化的结果。这个项目将利用长期的生态数据来询问在水生生物中观察到的变化何时、在哪里以及多久一次代表真正的进化反应。它的价值在于利用和分析现有数据，就生态变化的性质提出新的问题。德克萨斯大学阿灵顿分校是一所西班牙裔服务机构；STEM地区服务不足的群体占学生总数的42%。调查员将邀请本科生和研究生参与研究活动，并制定明确的计划，从服务不足的群体中招收学生。他将在本科生基于探究的实验室练习中使用他的分析和结果数据来演示如何区分生态反应和进化反应，并扩大他对服务不足群体的指导。他所在机构现有的外展项目将允许他让高中生参与暑期研究活动。通过公共推广计划，他将提高人们对水生生态系统对人为变化的脆弱性和长期研究的重要性的认识。长期生态研究(LTER)站点记录了自然种群和群落对气温上升、城市化加剧、富营养化和外来物种传播的反应，但没有检查这些反应反映进化变化的程度。组成这个项目的五个目标将量化长期生态变化的表型反应，使用表型作为进化反应的信号。来自威斯康星州和阿拉斯加州20多个湖泊的现有数据、样本和实验将被分析，以探索浮游动物特征的变化，这些变化可能表明对入侵物种、土地利用变化、气温上升和养分可获得性变化的进化反应。已经确定了解决这些问题的适当数据集和样本，尽管有些问题需要对存档标本进行新的测量。初步分析具有挑衅性。在某些情况下，浮游动物个体大小和数量的变化支持捕食者诱导的选择。在其他情况下，它们与主流理论的预测相矛盾。将始终使用探索性统计分析，将响应变量的变化与假定的选择压力联系起来。结果将允许比较不同地点的表型变化的节奏和轨迹，以询问温带和北极生态系统是否出现类似的反应。这位研究人员是一名职业生涯早期的研究人员；他的长期目标是将这些探索性研究建立成一个整合长期生态和进化研究的研究计划。

Documenting, understanding, and predicting how organisms respond to natural and anthropogenic change is complicated; some responses may be short-term, but others may result from evolutionary change. This project will exploit long-term ecological data to ask when, where, and how often changes observed in aquatic organisms represent true evolutionary responses. Its value lies in the use and analysis of existing data to ask new questions about the nature of ecological changes over time. The University of Texas at Arlington is an Hispanic Serving Institution; groups under-served in STEM areas comprise 42% of the student population. The investigator will engage undergraduate and graduate students in the research activities, with clear plans to recruit students from under-served groups. He will use his analyses and resulting data in undergraduate inquiry-based laboratory exercises to demonstrate how to distinguish ecological from evolutionary responses and to extend his mentoring of under-served groups. Existing outreach programs at his institution will allow him to engage high school students in summer research activities. Through public outreach programs, he will increase awareness of the vulnerability of aquatic ecosystems to anthropogenic change and the importance of long-term research.Long-Term Ecological Research (LTER) sites have documented responses of natural populations and communities to rising temperatures, increased urbanization, eutrophication, and the spread of exotic species, but have not examined the extent to which these responses reflect evolutionary change. The five aims comprising this project will quantify phenotypic responses to long-term ecological change, using phenotype as a signal for evolutionary responses. Existing data, samples, and experiments from over twenty lakes in Wisconsin and Alaska will be analyzed to explore changes in zooplankton traits that might indicate evolutionary responses to invasive species, land use change, rising temperatures, and changes in nutrient availability. Appropriate data sets and samples to address these questions have been identified, although some questions will require new measurements from archived specimens. Preliminary analyses are provocative. In some cases, changes in zooplankton body sizes and abundances support predator-induced selection. In other cases, they contradict predictions from prevailing theory. Exploratory statistical analyses will be used throughout to relate changes in response variables to putative selection pressures. Results will allow the tempo and trajectory of phenotypic change to be compared across sites to ask whether similar responses occur in temperate and arctic ecosystems. The investigator is an early-career researcher; his longer-term goal is to build these exploratory studies into a research program that integrates long-term ecological and evolutionary studies.