Temporal Changes in Fitness, Morphology and Genetic Composition of Experimental Hybrid Swarms

最近的工作已经使用海洋桡足类Tigriopus californicus作为一个模型，了解遗传不相容性的原因，在不同的人口之间的杂交的早期世代。这项建议旨在扩大这项工作的健身，形态和遗传组成的模式，在自由交配的杂交群体超过几十代。将为两对不同的种群建立重复的杂交群，其中两个亲本类型具有不同的起始频率。在两年半的时间里，将定期从每个群体中取出子样本，并对其进行适应性、形态学和一系列分子标记的分析，这些工作与野生植物和作物植物之间的渐渗和遗传同化的可能性等农业问题有关。结果也可能有应用于渔业和野生动物管理，由于关注的时间远交抑郁症和潜在的清除有害组合。最后，这项工作将有助于基本的进化问题，包括物种边界的性质和杂交在创造新物种中的作用。

Recent work has used the marine copepod Tigriopus californicus as a model for understanding the cause of genetic incompatibilities in the early generations of hybridization between divergent populations. This proposal seeks to extend this work to patterns of fitness, morphology and genetic composition in freely mating hybrid swarms over tens of generations. Replicate hybrid swarms will be established for two different pairs of populations, with different starting frequencies for the two parental types. Over a period of 2 1/2 years, subsamples will be removed from each swarm at regular intervals and assayed for fitness, morphology and a series of molecular markers.Such work is relevant to agricultural issues involving introgression between wild and crop plants and the probability of genetic assimilation. Results may also have applications to fisheries and wildlife management due to concern over the duration of outbreeding depression and the potential for purging deleterious combinations. Lastly, the work will contribute to fundamental evolutionary questions involving the nature of species boundaries and the role of hybridization in creating new species.