Estimating natural selection in population pairs locally adapted to contrasting environments

种群从基因上适应它们的环境，因此同一物种在不同环境中的种群可能在基因上不同。个体在种群之间的迁移会不断重新引入适应性差的基因，从而挑战这种适应性。该提案将研究安第斯山脉低海拔和高海拔地区鸭子的适应性，高原种群保持着独特的血红蛋白变异，尽管与低地种群有一定程度的混合。将开发软件来评估适应压力的强度，以及测量个体移动混合种群基因库的速率。这将有助于弄清一个种群在失去其独特的地方适应性之前所能维持的混合程度。为这个项目创建的软件工具将免费提供给生物学家，并将在诸如研究农药抗性进化、保护适应当地的动植物种群以及病原体耐药性进化等应用中发挥作用。该提案包括为软件开发团队的成员提供资金，以访问软件用户并与之互动，以确保软件将广泛有用。

Populations adapt genetically to their environments, so populations of the same species in different environments may be genetically distinct. Movement of individuals between populations can challenge this adaptation by constantly reintroducing poorly-adapted genes. This proposal will study adaptation in ducks from low and high altitudes in the Andes Mountains, where highland populations maintain distinctive hemoglobin variants despite some level of mixing with lowland populations. Software will be developed to assess the strength of the pressure to adapt, as well as to measure the rate at which movement of individuals mixes the population gene pools. This will help clarify the amount of mixing a population can sustain before losing its distinctive local adaptations. The software tools created for this project will be made freely available to biologists, and will be useful in applications such as studying the evolution of pesticide resistance, conservation of locally-adapted plant and animal populations, and evolution of drug resistance in pathogens. The proposal includes funding for members of the software development team to visit and interact with software users, insuring that the software will be broadly useful.