CAREER: Does behavioral plasticity promote or constrain adaptation? A test using resurrection.

生物体通过改变性状的表达来应对环境的变化。这些变化以何种方式促进或阻碍生物体在不断变化的环境中进化并最终坚持下去的能力尚不清楚。该项目利用浮游动物生物学的独特特征，直接观察和量化条件变化时的快速进化反应。这个项目将复活威斯康星州湖泊的浮游动物，这些浮游动物最近经历了巨大的环境变化（即，被一种新的捕食者入侵）。这将使PI能够实时跟踪环境诱导的性状反应和进化变化之间的相互作用。这种方法将为生物体如何适应环境变化提供新的见解。这个研究项目将与一个以浮游动物为模型的教育计划相结合，让学生参与以探究为基础的课程和以研究为基础的课程。该项目将支持西班牙裔服务机构（UTA）的研究生和本科生。从这个项目中产生的概念将被用于创建外展模块，在德克萨斯州高度可见的事件中向公众传达自然选择的进化。环境诱导的表型可塑性在适应性进化中的作用已经争论了几十年。可塑性是否保护基因型在环境发生新变化后不受选择的影响，从而阻碍了适应？还是表型可塑性加速了种群达到新的适应性峰值的速度，从而促进了适应？这些问题的答案在很大程度上仍未得到解决，因为很少有研究能够直接评估祖先谱系的可塑性，并追踪环境变化后的表型反应。该项目将通过恢复威斯康星州湖泊中浮游动物的历史繁殖体来解决这些问题，这些繁殖体最近发生了生态介导选择的转变。威斯康星州的多个湖泊最近被一种新的无脊椎捕食者（带刺的水蚤）入侵。对当代种群的比较表明，带刺水蚤的入侵与水蚤猎物的快速进化有关。这个项目将“复活实验”与实验室的实验进化相结合，以确定可塑性是促进还是阻碍了适应。具体而言，PI将：(1)确定选择的历史变化如何影响可塑性的表达，包括跨代可塑性；(2)实验检验可塑性是促进还是限制适应；(3)评估性状值的进化变化与性状可塑性和适应性之间的联系。这些方法将为生物体如何适应环境变化提供新的见解，包括对长期存在的关于行为在进化中的作用的假设的检验（即，行为进化第一假设）。

Organisms respond to changes in the environment by altering the expression of traits. The manner in which such changes facilitate or impede the ability of organisms to evolve and ultimately persist in changing environments is unclear. This project takes advantage of a unique feature of zooplankton biology to directly observe and to quantify rapid evolutionary responses when conditions change. This project will resurrect zooplankton from Wisconsin lakes that recently experienced a dramatic shift in the environment (i.e., invasion by a novel predator). This will allow the PI to track the interplay between environmentally-induced trait responses and evolutionary changes in "real time." Such an approach will provide novel insights into how organisms adapt to a change in the environment. This program of research will be combined with an educational plan that uses zooplankton as a model to engage students with inquiry-based curricula and research based courses. This project will support graduate and undergraduate students at a Hispanic Serving Institution (UTA). The concepts stemming from this project with be used to create outreach modules to convey evolution by natural selection to the general public at highly visible events in Texas. The role that environmentally-induced phenotypic plasticity plays in adaptive evolution has been debated for decades. Does plasticity shield genotypes from selection following a novel shift in the environment and, in turn, impede adaptation? Or does phenotypic plasticity accelerate the rate at which populations attain new fitness peaks and thereby facilitate adaptation? Answers to these questions largely remain unresolved because few studies are able to assess plasticity in ancestral lineages directly and to track phenotypic responses following a shift in the environment. This project will address these questions by resurrecting historic propagules of zooplankton from lakes in Wisconsin following a recent shift in ecologically-mediated selection. Multiple Wisconsin lakes were recently invaded by a novel invertebrate predator (spiny waterflea). Comparisons across contemporary populations show that invasion by spiny waterfleas is associated with rapid evolution of Daphnia prey. This project pairs 'resurrection experiments' with experimental evolution in the lab to determine if plasticity promotes or impedes adaptation. The PI will specifically: (1) determine how historical changes in selection shapes the expression of plasticity including transgenerational plasticity, (2) experimentally test whether plasticity facilitates or constrains adaptation, and (3) evaluate the connection between evolutionary shifts in trait values and trait plasticity and fitness. These approaches will provide novel insights into how organisms adapt to a change in the environment including a test of the longstanding hypothesis regarding the role of behavior in evolution (i.e., the behavior evolves first hypothesis).