Phenotypic evolution in animals: integrating multiple roles of the environment

生物学试图解释生命多样性的起源和后果。 我的工作有助于一个重要的辩论环境的作用在生物体的功能的演变，并最终如何生物多样性的出现。 传统的观点认为，当地环境只是从外部对不同的类型进行分类，成功的类型比不成功的类型生存得更好，后代也更多。 另一种观点认为，当地环境也对生物体的内部影响有贡献，这种影响塑造了生物体的发育方式，从而影响了可供选择的不同类型。 这些不同的角色促成了“自然”（进化的基因）与“后天”（促进发育的基因）之间的争论，而后者的进化潜力仍然未知。 许多动物性状对饲养环境有灵活的反应，但我们刚刚开始了解这种灵活性如何产生，消失和影响生物体的表现。 我的工作探讨了“后天的天性”（影响对环境的发育反应的基因）如何影响个体的表现，并促进或限制进化。我的工作在于生态学，发展和进化的交叉点，因此将有助于更广泛地综合理解生态学和进化中的环境效应。 我整合了经典的选择功能的外部环境，其潜在的内部影响的发展来解释不寻常的品种在加拿大的冰后期湖泊的鱼类。我的工作测试环境在多样性进化中的作用：1）实验室实验调查在盐与淡水中饲养的发育反应如何影响在淡水栖息地定居的海洋鱼类的适应; 2）实验室实验评估发育灵活性如何有助于Centrarchid鱼类新物种的形成; 3）竞争在不同品种南瓜太阳鱼进化中的作用的现场测试。 这些研究将有助于更好地了解环境与发展如何相互作用，如何促进重要生物多样性的演变。

Biology tries to explain the origins and consequences of life's variety. My work contributes to an important debate on the role of environment in the evolution of an organism's features and ultimately how biodiversity arises. The classical view has the local environment only externally sorting different types, with the more successful surviving better and having more offspring than less successful types. An alternative view has the local environment also contributing an internal effect that shapes how organisms develop and so influences what different types are available to selection. These different roles contribute to the debate between 'nature' (genes that evolve) versus 'nurture' (genes that contribute to development) and whose evolutionary potential remains unknown. Many animal traits have flexible responses to rearing environment but we are just beginning to understand how this flexibility arises, disappears and influences an organism's performance. My work explores how the 'nature of nurture' (genes that influence developmental responses to environment) influence an individual's performance and either contribute to or limit evolution. My work lies at the intersection of ecology, development and evolution and so will contribute to a wider synthetic understanding of environmental effects in ecology and evolution. I integrate the classical selective function of the external environment with its potential internal affects on development to explain the unusual varieties of fishes in Canada's postglacial lakes. My work tests the roles of environment in the evolution of diversity though: 1) Lab experiments investigating how developmental responses to rearing in salt versus freshwater affects adaptation in a marine fish that colonize freshwater habitats; 2) Lab experiments assessing how developmental flexibility contributes to the formation of new species in Centrarchid fishes; 3) Field tests of the role of competition in the evolution of different varieties of pumpkinseed sunfish. These studies will contribute a better understanding of how environment and development interact and contribute to the evolution of important biodiversity.