Ecological genomics of population persistence and adaptation to environmental change in fishes

气候模型预测的快速环境变化将影响物种的全球分布和丰富程度，这凸显了了解和预测种群在不断变化的环境下如何生存、适应或灭绝的紧迫性。我的研究计划的长期目标是了解遗传变异如何使生物体在其环境中持续存在并适应环境变化。我的研究小组通过关注进化变化的近因（遗传/表观遗传机制）和最终原因（选择的力量/代理人）来解释基因如何与环境相互作用，使用现场和实验室实验的结合，将基因组学整合到鱼类的自然种群中，以实现这一目标。温度是影响生物分布和丰度的主要环境因素，也是影响温度相关性状的生理、行为和可塑性（个体基因型根据环境变化表达不同表型的能力）的“非生物主因素”。由于对环境温度的依赖，许多物种特别容易受到气候变化的影响。然而，对于许多记录了自然种群的进化变化并将其归因于气候变化的研究，已经证明很难区分表型可塑性在假定的进化特征中的作用。我们的研究计划将测试与鱼类温度变化相关的生态基因组学和表型可塑性进化的特定假设，以更好地预测它们未来的丰度和分布。在这个框架内，我们将使用三刺棘鱼在未来五年的研究计划中调查以下短期目标：(1)验证可塑性介导的种群持久性和适应性表型可塑性的进化预测，并利用基因表达和DNA测序来阐明促成这些过程的潜在机制；(2)验证早期生活温度应激源对未来表型可塑性表达的作用及其对环境表现的影响的预测；(3)确定多种应激源对表型可塑性进化的影响及其对预测物种分布范围的相应影响；(4)利用新兴的基因组编辑方法确定与表型可塑性相关的等位基因的功能作用。我们将使用综合方法产生有影响力的数据，以评估表型可塑性在进化恢复力和适应全球温度变化中的作用。总的来说，我们的希望是，我们的研究进展将有助于理解野生种群在不断变化的环境中如何持续和进化，并通过提高气候变化模型下预测物种分布的准确性来为政策提供信息。

Rapid environmental changes predicted by climate models will impact the global distribution and abundance of species, highlighting the urgency to understand and predict how populations will persist, adapt or perish under changing environments. The long-term objective of my research program is to understand how genetic variation enables organisms to persist in their environment and adapt to environmental change. My research group tackles this by focusing on the proximate (genetic/epigenetic mechanisms) and ultimate (strength/agent of selection) causes of evolutionary change to explain how genes interact with the environment, using a combination of field and lab experiments that integrate genomics in natural populations of fishes to achieve this objective. Temperature is a predominant environmental factor affecting the distribution and abundance of organisms and as an "abiotic master factor" influences physiology, behaviour, and plasticity (the capacity for an individual genotype to express different phenotypes in response to environmental variation) of temperature-associated traits. Many species are particularly vulnerable to climate change because of their reliance on environmental temperature. Yet, for many studies that have recorded evolutionary changes in natural populations and attributed them to climate change, it has proven difficult to distinguish the role of phenotypic plasticity in putatively evolving traits. Our research program will test specific hypotheses about the ecological genomics and evolution of phenotypic plasticity in association with temperature variation in fishes to better predict their future abundance and distribution. Within this framework, we will use threespine stickleback to investigate the following short-term objectives over the next five years of our research program: (1) test the evolutionary predictions of plasticity-mediated population persistence and adaptive phenotypic plasticity and use gene expression and DNA sequencing to elucidate the underlying mechanisms contributing to these processes, (2) test predictions about the role of early life temperature stressors on the expression of future phenotypic plasticity and consequences for performance in the environment, (3) determine the effects of multiple stressors on the evolution of phenotypic plasticity and its corresponding impact on predicted species distribution ranges, and (4) determine the functional role of alleles associated with phenotypic plasticity with emerging genome editing methods. We will produce impactful data using an integrative approach to evaluate the role of phenotypic plasticity in evolutionary resilience and adaptation to global temperature changes. Collectively, our hope is that advances in our research will contribute to an understanding of how wild populations persist and evolve in the face of changing environments, and inform policy by improving the accuracy of predicted species distributions under climate change models.