Origins of novel biodiversity

点击翻译按钮获取中文摘要

I study the factors that promote and limit the formation of novel biodiversity in natural populations of aquatic animals. We know very little about how different kinds of individuals first arise in natural populations and how these different kinds diversify into different ecological niches. Canadian lakes are a natural laboratory of biodiversity formation and ecological diversification because they are young, have relatively few fish species, and so provide opportunities to diversify that are not found elsewhere. Numerous lake fish species include multiple ecotypes that use different resources and lake habitats. I study how these ecotypes form by asking what factors promote and limit diversification. The research will focus on what causes diversification in three ways. First, we will evaluate whether individuals respond to competition by adding alternates types of prey to their diets and whether and how this is affected by slight differences among individuals. Second, we will test the idea that increasing resource specialization by individuals may cause increased competition among individuals that specialize on the same resources and that may resist further specialization. Third, we will evaluate if aggressive behavior expressed towards similar individuals is genetically linked to behavior towards dissimilar individuals in contests over food resources in order to better understand how social behaviors evolve in animals that directly interact with each other during competition over food resources. These projects will all provide insights into how competition promotes and possibly limits the formation of novel diversity in a population and so will provide new insights into the role of competition in biodiversity formation. These projects will also contribute to the intellectual development of undergraduate and graduate students by having them participate in all aspects of the research including, training in laboratory and field work involving comparative and manipulate experiments, data analysis, problem-solving and both written and oral communication. Understanding the origins of biodiversity in populations will ultimately contribute to more effective conservation and management efforts because variation shapes population responses to environmental change. Lastly, theory suggests that novel biodiversity within populations can prime populations to rapidly evolve in ways that may partially offset ongoing biodiversity losses, but evaluating this idea requires understanding the nature of biodiversity within populations.