Life history adaptations of larvacean tunicates to environmental variability

我的长期目标是确定冷海洋浮游动物对环境条件的整体适应。这一点很重要，因为适应性决定了关键的生活史特征，如成熟时的年龄和大小、繁殖力（即产蛋率）和死亡率，它们共同决定了季节性和年际的补充和丰度周期。生活史特征受到强烈的选择压力和快速的进化变化的影响。我的指导概念模型是来自进化理论的经典生命史优化模型，其中关键特征受到生理权衡的影响，许多与身体大小有关。例如，生活史理论预测，身体尺寸的增加会导致繁殖力的增加，从而增加终身健康。然而，如果增加的体型需要增加的发育时间，导致被吃掉的可能性增加，那么增加的繁殖力可能会被权衡所阻止。

My long term goal is to determine whole-organism adaptations of cold ocean zooplankton to environmental conditions. This is important because adaptations determine key life history traits, such as age and size-at-maturity, fecundity (i.e. egg production rate), and mortality, which together determine seasonal and interannual cycles of recruitment and abundance. Life history traits are subject to intense selection pressure and rapid evolutionary change. My guiding conceptual model is the classical life history optimization model from evolutionary theory, in which key traits are subject to physiological trade-offs, many related to body size. For example, life history theory predicts that increased body size results in increased fecundity and thus increased lifetime fitness. However, increased fecundity may be prevented by trade-offs if increased body size requires increased development time resulting in increased probability of being eaten.