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能够（或阻止）成功建立新种群的因素。科学家们知道，两个关键因素是创始群体（人口统计）中的个体数量和这些个体的基因组成。然而，迄今为止，令人惊讶的是，有一个问题几乎没有受到关注，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拥有更多的遗传变异，这使得很难将这两个原因分开。这项即将进行的研究将把一个生物模型（面粉甲虫，Tribolium castaneum）与数学和统计模型配对，以了解随机性（机会）的作用，并在一个新的环境中启动一个新的种群并传播时，解开一个创始群体的大小和遗传学的相对贡献。研究结果将以多种方式造福社会。它们将与保护工作相关，旨在改进管理计划的设计，以便将一个物种重新引入野外（例如对加利福尼亚秃鹰所做的）。研究结果还将促进对生物入侵的理解和管理。生物入侵是指一种物种从一个地区无意中引入到另一个地区，并随后扩散到对经济和环境造成破坏的程度。因此，这项研究的结论将使决策者和管理者能够做出更明智的决定。此外，要进行的实验室实验具有一定的规模，使其非常适合本科生参与研究，提供优秀的实践学习机会。此外，实验生物学和数学生物学的研究生将通过该项目得到培训。他们将直接与资深科学家合作，并相互合作，不仅获得作为科学家的技能，而且还学习与专业领域以外的个人交流和合作。研究结果的广泛传播将使它们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.