How do species emerge?

生存、繁殖和死亡的不是个体特征，而是整个个体。对一个性状的选择可以对其他性状的选择产生反应。这种进化约束是由遗传、生理或自然选择施加的，通过引导进化朝着遗传阻力最小的方向进化，以丰富的表型变异为特征，从而限制适应。但是，如果约束只引导适应沿着可预测的路径进行，那么新物种如何摆脱它们的祖先，形成独特的生态进化角色？尽管辛普森用“波涛汹涌的大海”来比喻动态的适应性景观，但人们普遍认为适应度峰值的位置和拓扑结构是恒定的。这个PHD的目标是跟踪新物种出现期间形态方差-协方差矩阵的不同，寻找物种形成动力学中的“临界点”1，以填补关于新物种出现期间进化限制如何变化的经验证据空白。该项目将Goswami第二组中ERC资助的研究开发的比较分析技术与Ezard研究组中收集的NERC资助研究的数据结合在一起。

It is not individual traits that survive, reproduce and die, but whole individuals. Selection on one trait can generate a response to selection in others. This evolutionary constraint is imposed by heredity, physiology or natural selection and can limit adaptation by channeling evolution in the direction of least genetic resistance characterized by abundant phenotypic variability. But if constraint only channels adaptation down predictable paths, how do new species break away from their ancestors to forge distinct eco-evolutionary roles? Despite Simpson's "choppy sea" metaphor of a dynamic adaptive landscape, the location and topology of fitness peaks are ubiquitously assumed constant. The goal of this PhD is to track how morphological variance-covariance matrices differ during the emergence of new species, searching for "tipping points" 1 in the dynamics of speciation to fill the empirical evidence gap of how evolutionary constraints change during the emergence of new species. This project brings together comparative analytical techniques developed on ERC funded research in Goswami's group 2 with data gathered on NERC funded research in Ezard's research group.