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结果。我的工作促成了一场关于环境在生物特征进化中的作用以及生物多样性最终如何产生的重要辩论。经典观点认为，局部环境只在外部对不同的物种进行分类，更成功的物种生存得更好，并且比不成功的物种拥有更多的后代。另一种观点认为，当地环境也起到了一种内部效应，它塑造了生物体的发展方式，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“培育”（促进发育的基因）之间的争论，以及谁的进化潜力仍然未知。许多动物特征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是如何产生、消失和影响生物体的表现的。我的工作是探索“教养的本质”（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。我的工作是在生态，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和进化中的环境影响。我将外部环境的经典选择功能与其对发展的潜在内部影响结合起来，以解释加拿大冰川后湖泊中不寻常的鱼类品种。我的工作测试了环境在多样性进化中的作用：1)实验室实验研究了在盐和淡水中饲养的发育反应如何影响在淡水栖息地定居的海鱼的适应；2)通过实验室实验评估发育灵活性对centrarchic鱼类新种形成的影响；3)竞争在不同品种南瓜子翻车鱼进化中的作用的田间试验。这些研究将有助于更好地了解环境与发展如何相互作用并促进重要生物多样性的进化。

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.