Evolutionary and population ecology of large mammals

我的长期研究计划旨在了解个体差异是如何发展的，以及它们如何影响种群动态和进化过程。由于资源丰度变化的适应度结果因个体特征而异，个体差异是进化潜力和种群生态的关键决定因素。通过监测个体标记的野生哺乳动物从出生到死亡，我的研究小组记录了形态学、基因型、繁殖成功率和存活率的变化。利用几代人收集的已知个体的数据，我们现在可以测试关于终身繁殖（健康的代表）如何受到早期发育或父母特征的影响的假设。根据1300多只大角羊（到2023年为54年）和1600只袋鼠（到2023年为16年）的非常详细的数据，与国际合作者网络和创新的统计技术合作，在未来5年内，我将培训11名HQP。我们将测试关于生活史进化的假设，包括生长模式对两性生殖成功和女性生殖分配的影响。混合模型将根据早期生长情况确定雄性和雌性大角羊的群。然后我们将确定群集是否与不同的终生生殖策略有关。大角母亲在哺乳分配上表现出很大的个体差异：我假设这种差异可以通过父母的年龄和早期生长模式来解释。我们将研究袋鼠的生殖年龄分配：由于生长不确定，母亲的生殖价值可能在老年时仍然高于后代的生殖价值，这与终端投资假说预测的随着年龄的增长而分配的生殖价值相反。我们将确定雌性袋鼠、大角羊和山羊是作为策略的一部分跳过繁殖机会，还是仅仅受到资源可用性的限制。个体繁殖策略的结果将为种群动态的研究提供信息。袋鼠面临着一个不可预测的环境：根据饲料丰度，雌性的灵活生殖分配可能会导致招募的变化，并解释了人口增长的广泛变化。在大角羊中，我们将研究实验性易位的遗传和人口统计学结果，以拯救受近亲繁殖影响的种群

***My long-term research program seeks to understand how individual differences develop and how they affect population dynamics and evolutionary processes. Because the fitness consequences of changes in resource abundance vary according to individual characteristics, individual differences are key determinants of both evolutionary potential and population ecology. By monitoring individually-marked wild mammals from birth to death, my research group documents variation in morphology, genotype, reproductive success and survival. Using data on known individuals collected over several generations, we now can test hypotheses about how lifetime reproduction, a proxy of fitness, is affected by of early development or parental characteristics. Based on exceptionally detailed data on over 1300 bighorn sheep (54 years by 2023) and 1600 kangaroos (16 years), working with an international network of collaborators and innovative statistical techniques, over the next 5 years I will train 11 HQP. We will test hypotheses on life-history evolution, including the effects of growth patterns on reproductive success in both sexes and on reproductive allocation in females. Mixture models will identify clusters of both male and female bighorn sheep based on early growth. We will then determine if clusters are associated with different lifetime reproductive tactics. Bighorn mothers show much individual variation in allocation to lactation: I hypothesize that some of that variation can be explained by parental age and by early growth patterns. We will study age-specific allocation to reproduction in kangaroos: with indeterminate growth, the reproductive value of mothers may remain higher than that of offspring into old age, selecting against the greater allocation to reproduction with age predicted by the Terminal Investment Hypothesis. We will determine whether female kangaroo, bighorn sheep and mountain goats skip reproductive opportunities as part of a tactic, or are simply constrained by resource availability. Results on individual reproductive tactics will inform research on population dynamics. Kangaroos face an unpredictable environment: the flexible reproductive allocation of females according to forage abundance may drive changes in recruitment and explain the wide changes in population growth. In bighorn sheep, we will investigate the genetic and demographic consequences of an experimental translocation to rescue a population affected by inbreeding.**