Ecological and Evolutionary Response of Natural Populations to Climate Change: The Role of Phenotypic Plasticity

自然种群经常受到气候变化的影响。例如，在过去的几十年里，许多鸟类对春季气温上升的反应是将繁殖时间提前。然而，与种群遗传组成的变化（表明微进化）相比，这些种群水平的反应有多少可以归因于个体行为的变化（表明表型可塑性），这一点尚未探讨。解开这两种机制对于预测种群将如何应对未来的气候变化以及它们是否能迅速做出反应以避免灭绝至关重要。该项目应用强大的定量遗传统计工具（所谓的“动物模型”），从三个同域鸟类种群收集超过35年的优秀长期系谱数据集。首先，可塑性与微进化的相对贡献人口水平的反应，在繁殖的时间和进一步的关键生殖性状将进行评估。第二，表型可塑性本身的演变。可塑性是否存在遗传变异，从而存在可塑性适应性微进化的潜力？这项研究可以评估表型可塑性在多大程度上可能有助于减轻最近和未来气候变化的影响，并将对保护生物学具有应用价值。但它也会让我们对表型可塑性的进化遗传学有新的、基本的了解。

Natural populations are frequently affected by climate change. For example, many bird species have responded to increasing spring temperatures by shifting their timing of reproduction towards earlier breeding over the last decades. It is unexplored, however, how much of these population-level responses can be attributed to changes in the behaviour of individuals (indicating phenotypic plasticity) compared to changes in the genetic composition of the population (suggesting microevolution). Disentangling both mechanisms is of crucial importance for predicting how populations will respond to future climate change and whether they will react fast enough to escape extinction. This project applies powerful quantitative genetic statistical tools (so-called 'animal models') to outstanding long-term pedigree data sets from three sympatric bird populations collected over 35 years. First, the relative contributions of plasticity versus microevolution to population-level responses in the timing of reproduction and in further key reproductive traits will be assessed. Second, the evolution of phenotypic plasticity itself is addressed. Is there heritable variation in plasticity and thus a potential for adaptive microevolution of plasticity? This research allows an assessment of how far phenotypic plasticity may or may not be able to contribute to mitigating the effects of recent, and future, climate change and will be of applied merit for conservation biology. But it will just as well allow novel and fundamental insights into the evolutionary genetics of phenotypic plasticity.