Within-individual variation: plasticity, consistency, genotype-by-environment interaction and hidden genetic variance

我的研究计划的长期目标是了解自然种群如何在不断变化的环境中适应和进化。自然选择进化论出奇地简单。它认为，个体最好地适应他们的环境，繁殖和生存得更好。因此，只要个体之间存在一些变异，并且这种变异的一部分具有遗传基础，就会选择具有最有利特征的个体，从而导致群体中特征的进化。因此，为了理解进化，我们需要估计个体之间的差异，并将其分解为遗传和非遗传成分。到目前为止，作为遗传变异的一部分，微环境变异一直没有得到很好的考虑。然而，最近在国内种群中的研究强调了它的进化重要性，表明如果不考虑它，我们可能会错误地识别选择的形式和强度，从而导致对进化的错误预测。我们现在需要更好地理解进化过程中的微环境变化。 这项研究计划的短期目标是确定遗传微环境变异在自然种群中的重要性，并发展新的进化理论来理解其进化和影响。在合作者的帮助下，我将利用至少4项最好的野外长期研究的大型数据集的存在，包括科罗拉多州的黄腹土拨鼠、加拿大落基山脉的大角羊、育空地区的红松鼠和瑞士的高山雨燕。结合超过165年的野外工作和最先进的分析，我们将能够估计野生种群中多个性状和物种的遗传微环境差异。使用如此广泛的物种将提供更强有力的推论，说明不同物种和特征之间微环境差异的存在和重要性，并洞察不同生态环境的影响。此外，使用基于模拟的方法，我们将开发新的理论来确定微环境变化对进化的重要性。此外，该研究计划将在未来5年为18名HQP提供本科、硕士和博士水平的培训机会。 总体而言，该项目将提供对迄今主要被忽视的进化过程的关键见解。在人类世，人类对野生动物的压力不断增加，保护和野生动物管理往往依赖于对种群规模变化和进化动态的预测。农业的选择性育种和作物发展也高度依赖于我们对进化动态的理解。在这些背景下，通过提高我们对自然种群生态和进化动态的理解，这项研究计划将在保护和粮食安全方面产生重要的社会影响。

The long-term objective of my research program is to understand how natural population adapt and evolve in a changing environment. The theory of evolution by natural selection is surprisingly simple. It considers that individuals best adapted to their environment reproduce and survive better. Thus, as long as there is some variation among individuals and that part of this variation has a genetic basis, individuals with the most advantageous traits are selected leading to an evolution of the traits in the population. To understand evolution, we thus need to estimate the variation among-individual and decompose it into its genetic and non-genetic components. To date, part of the genetic variance, the micro-environmental variance has been poorly considered. However recent studies in domestic populations have highlighted its evolutionary importance indicating that when not considering it we can misidentify the shape and strength of selection leading to erroneous prediction of evolution. We now need to develop a better understanding of the micro-environmental variance on evolution. The short-term goals of this research program are to identify the importance of the genetic micro-environmental variance in natural populations, and to develop new evolutionary theory to understand its evolution and impact. With the help of collaborators, I will leverage the existence of large datasets from at least 4 of the best long-term studies in the wild, including yellow-bellied marmots in Colorado, bighorn sheep in the Canadian Rockies, red squirrels in the Yukon, and alpine swifts in Switzerland. Combining more than 165 years of field work with state-of-the-art analysis, we will be able to estimate the genetic micro-environmental variance across multiple traits and species in wild populations. Using such a wide variety of species will provide much stronger inferences as to the existence and importance of micro-environmental variance across species and traits, and provide insight into the effects of differing ecologies. In addition, using a simulation based approach, we will develop new theory to determine the importance of the micro-environmental variance for evolution. Further this research program will provide training opportunities for 18 HQP at the undergraduate, MSc and PhD levels over the next 5 years. Overall this project will provide key insights into evolutionary processes that have been mainly ignored to date. In the Anthropocene where human pressure on wildlife is ever increasing, conservation and wildlife management often depend on predictions of population size variation and evolutionary dynamics. Selective breeding and crop development for agriculture are also highly dependent on our understanding of evolutionary dynamics. In these contexts, by improving our understanding of ecological and evolutionary dynamics in natural populations, this research program will have important societal impacts both on conservation and food security.