Collaborative Research: The roles of demography, genetics, and stochasticity in colonization

生态学中的一个重要问题是了解使（或阻止）新种群成功建立的因素。科学家们知道两个关键因素是创始群体中的个体数量（其人口统计学）和这些个体的遗传组成。然而，到目前为止，一个令人惊讶的问题很少受到关注，那就是人口统计学和遗传学的相对重要性，以及它们如何相互作用。 这种忽视的主要原因是，由更多个体组成的群体通常具有更多的遗传变异，因此很难将这两种原因分开。即将开展的研究将把一个生物模型（面粉甲虫、赤拟谷盗）与数学和统计模型配对，以了解随机性（机会）的作用，并理清创始群体的规模和遗传学的相对贡献，因为它启动了一个新的种群，并在一个新的环境中传播。研究结果将以多种方式造福社会。它们将与旨在改善管理计划设计的保护工作相关，以将一个物种重新引入野外（例如对加州秃鹰所做的）。研究结果还将促进对生物入侵的理解和管理，生物入侵是指来自一个地区的物种无意中被引入一个新的地区，随后扩散到经济和环境破坏的水平。因此，这项研究的结论将使决策者和管理人员能够作出更知情的决定。此外，要进行的实验室实验的规模，使他们理想的参与研究本科生，提供优良的，动手学习的机会。此外，实验生物学和数学生物学的研究生将通过该项目接受培训。他们将直接与高级科学家和彼此合作，不仅获得科学家的技能，而且还学习与专业领域以外的个人进行沟通和合作。研究结果的广泛传播将使其远远超出传统的专家受众。

An important problem in ecology is understanding the factors that enable (or prevent) the successful founding of new populations. Scientists know that two key factors are the numbers of individuals in the founding group (its demography) and the genetic composition of those individuals. A question that has received surprisingly little attention to date, however, is the relative importance of demography and genetics, and how they might interact. The primary reason for this neglect is that populations comprised of more individuals typically harbor more genetic variation, making it difficult to separate the two causes. The study to be carried out will pair a biological model (flour beetles, Tribolium castaneum) with mathematical and statistical models to understand the role of stochasticity (chance) and disentangle the relative contributions of the size and genetics of a founding group as it initiates a new population and spreads in a novel environment. The research findings will benefit society in multiple ways. They will be relevant to conservation efforts aimed at improving the designs of management plans to reintroduce a species to the wild (such as was done with the California condor). The results will also advance understanding and management of biological invasions, which occur when a species from one area is inadvertently introduced into a new region, and subsequently proliferates to economically and environmentally damaging levels. The study's conclusions will thus enable both policy makers and managers to make better-informed decisions. Additionally, the laboratory experiments to be conducted are of a scale that makes them ideal for involving undergraduates in research, providing excellent, hands-on learning opportunities. Further, graduate students in experimental and mathematical biology will receive training through this project. They will work directly with the senior scientists and with one another, gaining skills not only as scientists, but also learning to communicate and collaborate with individuals outside their specialized fields. Wide dissemination of the study's results will spread them well beyond traditional expert audiences.