Evolutionary demography of wild populations. Démographie évolutive des populations sauvages.

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My long-term research program explores how natural and anthropogenic ecological variation, leads to changes in genotype, phenotype, life history, and population size. My group and I seek to understand how these changes affect evolutionary processes in wild populations. Several studies have documented phenotypic response to current unprecedentedly fast rates of anthropogenic environmental change. Phenotypic differences between individuals can affect their fitness and mean vital rates and it has been recently shown that changes in trait distribution can affect population growth rate. Although population dynamics have interested demographers and ecologists for at least two centuries, very few quantitative empirical examples illustrating the importance of genetically-based phenotypic effects on population growth are available. We thus know little about the relative contribution of ecological and evolutionary processes (i.e., change in mean population phenotype over time) to population dynamics, despite their fundamental importance for conservation, natural resource management and evolutionary demography. Over the next five years, my students and I will focus on three main research themes: I) Identify the ecological, social and demographic mechanisms that produce variation in individual fitness and mean vital rates. II) Investigate the consequences of environmental variation on the opportunity for and strength of selection acting on quantitative traits. III) Quantify the relative importance of ecology and evolution in generating population dynamics. To achieve these objectives my research team will exploit exceptionally detailed field data from long term longitudinal studies (9-40 years) of marked vertebrates (brown bears, bighorn sheep, mountain goats, tree swallows). My program will provide major advances in our understanding of the interplay between short and long-term consequences of spatio-temporal environmental variability (natural and anthropogenic) on individual life-histories, population dynamics, and evolutionary processes. Through these advances I will prepare numerous highly qualified personnel for relevant positions in biological conservation, resource management, and academia.