Life-history trade-offs, seasonal time constraints, and the optimization of body size

我的研究项目旨在了解生命史如何受到环境的影响，并将这种理解应用于保护被开发的种群和处于危险中的物种。生活史特征对适应性有直接的和特定环境的影响，了解生活史进化的权衡和生态环境对理解当地适应、人口比率和灭绝风险至关重要。体型是许多生命史进化模型的核心，但对于体型如何优化尚无共识。为了更广泛地理解生命史进化，并将这些知识有效地应用于保护和管理，我们需要了解个体发育过程中大小是如何优化的。******我的短期目标是更好地理解大小是如何优化的，并探索物理环境是如何影响优化的。我的第一个目标（phd, Msc1）是研究母体的体型和胚胎/幼崽发育的时间长度如何共同影响对后代的最佳投资，从而影响幼崽的最佳体型。该目标旨在提供一个急需的、广泛适用的框架，以了解父母如何优化其后代的体型，从而为探索依赖于初始体型的生活史表达变异以及在被剥削群体中选择体型的收获的影响奠定理论基础。我的第二个目标（博士学位）是验证亲子冲突在体型进化中起着核心作用的观点，并为伯格曼规则及其同类规则提出生活史假设。这个目标的目的是澄清控制体型进化的权衡和环境影响，这样我们就能更好地预测体型一般会如何对环境变化做出反应。最后，我将使用长期数据来研究生长和繁殖之间的权衡是如何被十年变暖模式改变的，使用长寿的爬行动物作为模式生物（PhD3, MSc2）。这一目标将有助于阐明热环境如何影响关键的生活史权衡，以及温度的长期变化如何可能影响适应较冷北方环境的种群的生存和招募。******总之，这项工作将训练5个HQP，并将有助于解决影响体型进化的机制和过程。在短期内，它将为研究人员提供一个总体框架，在该框架中考虑跨个体发育的尺寸优化。从长远来看，它将有助于阐明生命史如何更广泛地响应环境变化，因为它为后续研究特定类型的环境变化/人为干扰如何影响通过大小介导的生命史表达/进化奠定了基础。

My research program aims to understand how life histories are influenced by the environment, and to apply this understanding to the conservation of exploited populations and species at risk. Life-history traits have a direct and context-specific effect on fitness, and understanding the trade-offs and ecological context under which life-histories have evolved is central to understanding local adaptation, demographic rates, and extinction risk. Body size is central to many models of life-history evolution, yet there is no consensus on how body size is optimized. In order to understand life-history evolution more broadly and apply this knowledge effectively to conservation and management, we need to understand how size is optimized across ontogeny. ******My short term goal is to develop a better understanding of how size is optimized, and to explore how optimization is influenced by the physical environment. My first objective (PhD1, Msc1) is to examine how maternal body size and the length of time available for embryo/juvenile development jointly affect optimal investment in offspring, and hence optimal juvenile size. This objective aims to provide a much-needed and broadly-applicable framework in which to understand how parents optimize the size of their offspring, thereby laying a theoretical groundwork in which to explore variation in life-history expression that depends on initial size, as well as the effects of size-selective harvesting in exploited populations. My second objective (PhD2) is to test the idea that parent-offspring conflict plays a central role in body size evolution, and to develop life-historical hypotheses for Bergmann's Rule and its congeners. This objective aims to clarify the trade-offs and environmental influences that govern body-size evolution, such that we are in a better position to predict how size in general will respond to environmental change. Finally, I will use long-term data to investigate how trade-offs between growth and reproduction are altered by decadal warming patterns, using long-lived reptiles as model organisms (PhD3, MSc2). This objective will help elucidate how the thermal environment affects key life-history trade-offs, and how long-term changes in temperature are likely to affect survival and recruitment in populations adapted to cooler northern environments.******In sum, this work will train five HQP, and it will help resolve the mechanisms and processes that affect the evolution of body size. In the short term, it will provide researchers with a general framework in which to consider the optimization of size across ontogeny. In the long term, it will help clarify how life-histories more broadly will respond to changes in the environment, as it lays the foundation for subsequent investigation into how specific types of environmental variation/anthropogenic disturbance affect life-history expression/evolution that is mediated through size.