Individual-based population and evolutionary ecology in theory and application

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Making sense of the complexity of how ecological interactions and trait variation affect fitness, population dynamics, and ultimately evolution is one of the most challenging problems in all of biology. In this pursuit the approach of evolutionary ecology is distinguished from other disciplines by its explicit focus on the causes and consequences of individual variation. Examples of my work in this context focus on wild populations of large herbivores (woodland caribou, red deer, feral horses). Here I outline proposed research principally directed at my long-term, individual-based study of feral horses on Sable Island, Nova Scotia. The system is remarkable in that it allows me to study trait and life history variation, individual ecology, and evolutionary genetics for a model organism of biology in a wild but yet idealized setting. As the island’s only terrestrial mammal, the horses exist without guild competitors or predators; they are also maintained in an unmanaged state (designated as ‘naturalized wildlife’ by Parks Canada) which, as a consequence, makes them highly amenable to individual-based ecological and evolutionary research. This past year was the eighth for my group’s whole-population sampling program whereby each summer for almost every horse (N = 458 in 2015; identifiable from photographs with ~1.0 resighting probability) we collect data and samples to characterize life histories, trait variation, genetics, and each individual’s unique experience of its environment. Over the next five years, I will be pursuing four interrelated research axes (I-IV) aligned with my career objectives of understanding fundamental causes and consequences of relationships between individual ecology, trait variation, fitness, and population dynamics; and translating this knowledge into practical policy recommendations for conservation. Axis I on life history and population ecology, and conservation biology, is low risk but with ever-increasing potential for high impact as individual-based samples and life history data accumulate. Axes II-IV present relatively higher risk-reward profiles given their pioneering nature, and capitalize on very recent technological and methodological breakthroughs including: (1) development of meta-DNA barcoding approaches for describing gut parasitic communities using high-throughput DNA sequencing (Axis II: ecological and evolutionary causes and consequences of individual variation in gut biota and parasites); (2) the 2015 commercialization of an equine 600K SNP array (Axis III: advancing research on evolutionary genetics); and (3) application of integral projection models to evolutionary demography (Axis IV: understanding effects of density dependence on evolution of body size). My program aims to train 10 undergraduate, 2 MSc, and 6 PhD students plus 2 PDFs in a dynamic lab that thrives on interdisciplinary and international collaboration.