International Research Fellowship Program: Temporal Variation in the Genetic Mating System of the Two-Spotted Goby

国际研究奖学金计划使美国科学家和工程师能够在国外进行9到24个月的研究。该项目的奖项提供了联合研究的机会，并利用国外独特或互补的设施、专业知识和实验条件。该奖项将支持肯扬·B·莫布利博士与挪威挪威科技大学(NTNU)的Elisabet Forsgren博士和Trond Amundsen博士以及北亚利桑那大学的Stephen Shuster博士合作，为期24个月的研究奖学金。在过去的20年里，由于传统交配行为量化方法与亲子关系分子分析技术之间日益增长的协同作用，性别选择的研究得到了极大的丰富。对亲子关系的研究已经提供了对遗传交配模式的前所未有的详细描述，但如何最好地利用这些数据来量化性选择的强度还没有得到解决。虽然已经提出了各种方法来量化性选择的强度，但对于哪种方法最合适，存在根本的分歧。克服这一进步障碍的一种方法是比较在一个已知性选择强度不同的系统内提出的各种方法。这样的系统存在于两点虎鱼--黄色戈壁虎鱼中，这种物种的性选择强度是暂时动态的。该项目由两部分组成，即与挪威东道主合作的实地考察和与美国东道主合作的基于模拟的建模部分。野外研究部分包括在夏季繁殖季节从瑞典西海岸两个自然种群采集的成年雌性、雄性和雄性巢穴的野外采集。基于微卫星的巢孵化亲子关系分析为评价几种估计性别选择的统计方法提供了必要的数据，这些方法包括选择机会、性选择机会、贝特曼梯度、选择机会中的性别差异、资源垄断指数和森下指数。建模部分构建基于模拟的模型，以测试性别比、种群密度和变化的生殖贡献对各种方法的影响，以确定最合适的性别选择方法(S)。

0701086MobleyThe International Research Fellowship Program enables U.S. scientists and engineers to conduct nine to twenty-four months of research abroad. The program's awards provide opportunities for joint research, and the use of unique or complementary facilities, expertise and experimental conditions abroad.This award will support a twenty-four-month research fellowship by Dr. Kenyon B. Mobley to work with Drs. Elisabet Forsgren and Trond Amundsen at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU) in Norway, and with Dr. Stephen Shuster at Northern Arizona University.The study of sexual selection has been greatly enriched in the last two decades by a growing synergy between traditional approaches for quantifying mating behavior and molecular techniques of parentage analysis. Studies of parentage have provided descriptions of genetic mating patterns at an unprecedented level of detail, but how best to use such data to quantify the intensity of sexual selection has not been resolved. Although various methods have been proposed to quantify the strength of sexual selection, there are fundamental disagreements with respect to which methods are most appropriate. One way to overcome this barrier to progress is to compare the various methods proposed within a system in which the strength of sexual selection is known to vary. Such a system exists in the two-spotted goby, Gobiusculus flavescens, a species in which the intensity of sexual selection is temporally dynamic. This project consists of two parts, a field study in conjunction with the Norwegian hosts, and a simulation-based modeling portion in collaboration with the U.S. host. The field study portion consists of field collections of adult females, males and the males' nests harvested at three times during the summer breeding season from two natural populations of G. flavescens from the Swedish West Coast. Microsatellite-based parentage analysis of nest hatchlings provide the necessary data for the evaluation of several statistical methods of estimating sexual selection including the opportunity for selection, the opportunity for sexual selection, the Bateman gradient, the sex difference in the opportunity for selection, the index of resource monopolization and the Morisita index. The modeling portion constructs simulation-based models to test the influence of sex ratios, population density and changing reproductive contributions on the various methods in order to identify the most appropriate method(s) for quantifying sexual selection.