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

我的研究计划旨在了解生命历史如何受到环境的影响，并将这种理解应用于保护被剥削的种群和濒危物种。生活史特征对适合度有直接和特定于背景的影响，了解生活史演变的权衡和生态背景是理解当地适应、人口比率和灭绝风险的核心。体型是许多生命历史进化模型的核心，但对于如何优化体型还没有达成共识。为了更广泛地理解生活史进化，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，并探索物理环境如何影响优化。我的第一个目标(Phd1，Msc1)是研究母体大小和胚胎/幼体发育的时间长度如何共同影响对后代的最佳投资，从而影响最佳幼体大小。这一目标的目的是提供一个急需和广泛适用的框架，以了解父母如何优化其后代的大小，从而为探索依赖于初始大小的生活史表达的变化以及在被剥削种群中选择大小收获的影响奠定理论基础。我的第二个目标(PHD2)是测试父母-后代冲突在体型进化中起核心作用的观点，并为伯格曼规则及其同类规则发展生活史假说。这一目标旨在阐明支配体型进化的权衡和环境影响，以便我们能够更好地预测体型总体上如何对环境变化做出反应。最后，我将使用长期数据来研究十年变暖模式如何改变生长和繁殖之间的权衡，使用长寿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可能如何影响适应较凉爽北方环境的种群的生存和招募。 综上所述，这项工作将培养五个HQP，它将有助于解决影响身体尺寸进化的机制和过程。在短期内，它将为研究人员提供一个总体框架，在其中考虑个体发育过程中大小的优化。从长远来看，这将有助于阐明更广泛的生活史将如何对环境变化做出反应，因为它为随后关于特定类型的环境变异/人为干扰如何影响通过大小调节的生活史表达/进化的研究奠定了基础。

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.