Ecological opportunity and the origins of novel biodiversity

我们的长期研究计划解决了有关如何在资源多态性的形式生物多样性的基本问题出现在由生活在不同的湖泊栖息地交替生态型组成的鱼类的单一种群。我们的NSERC资助的研究计划在经验和概念上对适应性差异理论做出了贡献，适应性差异理论是用于理解生物多样性形成的核心框架。我们确定和测试的因素，调节形成专门的生态型，并扩大了理论，包括表型可塑性的作用，专业化和适应性分歧的影响。自1993年以来，南瓜太阳鱼（13篇文章）和其他鱼类（10篇文章）的资源多态性的长期经验使我们能够调查调节多个生态型如何演变的因果因素，以及如何将其转化为新物种。这项工作之所以重要，不仅是因为它与生物多样性的形成有关，而且还因为很少在生态功能、管理和养护的背景下考虑种群内的多样性，或考虑其缓冲种群免受环境变化不利影响的能力。 对自然种群的长期研究提供了解决多样化新问题所需的重要生态认识。共生生态型适应性分化的关键问题是交配和有性重组破坏了选择有利于在不同生境中特化的有用基因的组合，阻止了遗传上不同生态型的形成。然而，这些生态类型在加拿大的鱼类中很常见，为我们提供了在其最早阶段研究生物多样性形成过程的机会。我们的长期目标集中在理解产生选择和允许个体自由交配的过程。在接下来的5年里，我们将研究扩散如何影响生态类型是否遇到和交配与自己或不同的生态类型，竞争的作用在产生选择生态类型专业化，以及如何不同的湖泊栖息地的认知挑战影响大脑的大小和行为的鱼在不同的栖息地。这项工作将作出新的贡献，我们的理解分歧过程中的自然环境。 重要的是，我们的实地和实验室研究是我的HQP培训计划的重要组成部分。在过去的6年里，我们的研究支持了27名HQP的培训，产生了10篇出版物（加上1篇出版物和2篇修订后重新提交的出版物）和超过31篇HQP会议报告。在接下来的5年里，HQP将获得广泛的现场生态和实验室方法的经验，涉及鱼类的各个生命阶段和大量的分析培训。共有3名博士，1名硕士和20多名本科生将受益于这项发现请求所支持的研究。

Our long-term research program addresses fundamental questions about how biodiversity in the form of resource polymorphism arises within single populations of fishes composed of alternate ecotypes that live in different lake habitats. Our NSERC-funded research program has contributed empirically and conceptually to the theory of adaptive divergence, the central framework used to understand biodiversity formation. We identify and test factors that regulate the formation of specialized ecotypes, and have expanded theory by including a role for phenotypic plasticity in specialization and its influence on adaptive divergence. Long-term experience with resource polymorphism in pumpkinseed sunfish since 1993 (13 articles) and other fishes (10 articles) uniquely positions us to investigate causal factors that regulate how multiple ecotypes evolve and how this may be converted into new species. This work is important not just in its relation to biodiversity formation, but also because diversity within populations is rarely considered in the contexts of ecological function, management and conservation, or its capacity to buffer populations from adverse effects of environmental change. Long-term studies in natural populations provide the vital ecological understanding required to address novel questions about diversification. The key problem for the adaptive divergence of co-occurring ecotypes is that mating and sexual recombination break down combinations of useful genes favored by selection for specializing in different habitats, preventing the formation of genetically distinct ecotypes. Yet these ecotypes are common in Canada's fishes, providing us with the opportunity to study biodiversity formation processes at their earliest stages. Our long-term objectives focus on understanding the processes that generate selection and that allow individuals to mate assortatively. Over the next 5 years, we will study how dispersal influences whether ecotypes encounter and mate with their own or a different ecotype, the role competition plays in generating selection for ecotype specialization, and how the cognitive challenges of different lake habitats influence brain size and behaviour of fish in different habitats. This work will make novel contributions to our understanding of divergence processes in a natural context. Importantly, our field and lab-based research comprises an essential part of my HQP training program. Over the last 6 years, our research has supported the training of 27 HQP, that generated 10 publications (plus 1 in press and 2 resubmitted after revision) and more than 31 HQP conference presentations. Over the next 5 years, HQP will gain experience in a wide array of field ecological and lab methods involving various life stages of fishes and considerable analytical training. A total of 3 PhD, 1 MSc and more than 20 undergraduates will benefit from the research enabled by this Discovery request.