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

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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.