Collaborative Research: RUI: Life history strategies within a population depend on cellular and organismal traits that underlie differences in resource acquisition and allocation

所有的有机体都需要能量来为生命的生物过程提供燃料。一般来说，这种能量可以分配给三大类：生长、自我维持和繁殖。换句话说，生物体可以分配获得的能量来生长他们的身体，以达到更大的尺寸，修复和维护他们的身体以活得更长，或者繁殖和创造他们后代的新身体。然而，能源是有限的，所以如果更多地投资于增长，那么可以投资于自我维持和繁殖的就更少了。这导致了分配的权衡，其中一些人更善于成长，而另一些人可能能够达到极长的寿命。虽然这些模式通常适用于动物，但在许多物种中，科学家观察到某些个体似乎能够做到这一切而几乎没有什么后果，但人们对这种情况是如何发生的知之甚少。这项提议研究了一种长寿的海鸟--利奇风暴鸟，这种鸟在过去70年里一直被持续研究。这项工作表明，尽管我们有许多人展示了预期的分配权衡，但也有许多人以某种方式逃脱了这种权衡。我们的工作探索了避免这种权衡的分子和细胞过程。这项工作集中在生物学中的一个基本问题上，并将帮助我们理解分子过程和生物性能如何影响寿命。这项工作还有力地支持了本科生的科学教育，并将导致初中和高中课堂上使用的探究式科学模块的开发。推动物种内和物种之间多样化生活史策略进化的因素仍然是生态学和进化生物学的一个基本问题。由于资源是有限的，许多生活史特征都受到内在权衡的影响。然而，理论模型提出，个体获取资源的差异可以在繁殖投资和生存投资之间产生明显的正相关，而不是预期的权衡。这项建议通过检测策略的表型变化来测试这些模型，以平衡当前繁殖和生存之间的权衡，自1953年以来一直在对长寿海鸟--利奇风暴海燕(Hybates Leucorhous)--进行研究。这一建议有三个主要目标：1)更好地了解在该种群中观察到的权衡策略变化背后的分子、细胞和组织表现特征，2)确定似乎逃脱权衡的个体是否通过理论模型中提出的更高的觅食效率来做到这一点，以及3)确定这些权衡策略是固定的还是塑料的，以应对环境的变化。这项拟议的研究以70年的人口统计数据集为基础，利用(I)新技术和分子工具的组合来了解在所观察到的权衡策略变化背后的分子、细胞和生物性能特征，以及(Ii)通过实验操作来探索这些策略是固定的还是可塑性的。该项目由综合生态生理学计划和既定的刺激竞争研究计划(EPSCoR)联合资助。该奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的智力优势和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

All organisms need energy to fuel the biological processes of life. In general, this energy can be allocated to three broad categories: growth, self-maintenance, and reproduction. Said in another way, organisms can allocate acquired energy to grow their body to achieve a larger size, to repair and maintain their body to live longer, or to reproduce and create the new bodies of their offspring. However energy is limiting, so if more is invested into growth, less can be invested into self-maintenance and reproduction. This results in allocation trade-offs, where some individuals are better at growing, while others may be able to attain extreme longevity. While these patterns generally hold in animals, in many species scientist’s observe certain individuals who appear to be able to do it all with few consequences, but little is known about how this occurs. This proposal studies a long-lived seabird, Leach's storm-petrels, that has been studied continuously for the past 70 years. This work has revealed that while we have many individuals who show the expected allocation trade-offs there are also many that somehow have escaped that trade-off. Our work explores the molecular and cellular processes that underlie the ability to avoid this trade-off. This work is focused on a fundamental question in biology, and will help us to understand how molecular processes and organismal performance affect longevity. This work also strongly supports undergraduate science education, and will result in the development of inquiry-based scientific modules used in middle school and high school classrooms.Factors driving the evolution of diverse life history strategies both within and between species remain a fundamental question in ecology and evolutionary biology. Because resources are finite, many life history traits are subject to intrinsic trade-offs. However, theoretical models have proposed that variation in individual acquisition of resources can produce apparent positive correlations between investment in reproduction and investment in survival instead of the expected trade-off. This proposal tests these models by examining phenotypic variation in strategies to balance the trade-off between current reproduction and survival in a long-lived seabird, Leach's storm-petrels (Hydrobates leucorhous), that has been studied continuously since 1953. This proposal has three primary objectives: 1) to better understand the molecular, cellular, and organismal performance traits that underlie the observed variation in trade-off strategies in this population, and 2) to determine if individuals who appear to escape the trade-off do so via higher foraging efficiency as proposed in theoretical models, and 3) to determine whether these trade-off strategies are fixed or plastic in response to environmental variability. The proposed research is informed by a 70-year demographic data set, and utilizes (i) a combination of novel technology and molecular tools to understand the molecular, cellular, and organismal performance traits that underlie the observed variation in trade-off strategies, and (ii) experimental manipulations to explore whether these strategies are fixed or plastic.This project is jointly funded by the Integrative Ecological Physiology Program and the Established Program to Stimulate Competitive Research (EPSCoR).This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.