LTREB: Evolutionary Dynamics in a Rapidly Changing Environment

这项研究的目的是了解在快速变化的环境中，模式生物--黄腹土拨鼠的各种生理、行为和生活史特征的自然选择是如何随着时间的推移而变化的。通过跟踪个体标记的土拨鼠的命运，这项研究将为进化对环境变化的反应的局限性提供新的见解。这项研究将改变我们对环境驱动的潜在“好”和“坏”变化的看法。这些方法和结果应该适用于各种其他物种，它们最初可能表现得更好，但最终可能会因为较早到来的春季条件而变得更差。该项目的更广泛影响将包括：(1)从代表性不足的群体中招募和培训研究生和本科生；(2)通过科学和流行文章和演讲，以及与科学记者的互动，向科学受众和普通公众广泛传播研究成果；(3)维护旱獭会议纪要(博客)、旱獭洞穴(网站)和土拨鼠的RMBL(网站)；以及(4)继续进行世界上持续时间最长的研究之一，追踪单独标记的哺乳动物的命运。这个数据集已经成为研究气候变化对冬眠脊椎动物影响的重要窗口，也是一个可用于探索种群和进化动态的有价值的数据集。

The purpose of this study is to understand how natural selection on various physiological, behavioral, and life history traits in a model organism, yellow-bellied marmots, varies over time in a rapidly changing environment. By following the fate of individually-marked marmots, this research will provide new insights on the limits of evolutionary responses to environmental change. This research will transform our views of potentially "good" and "bad" changes that are driven by the environment. These methods and results should be applicable to a variety of other species that are likely to initially do "better" but may ultimately do "worse" from earlier arrival of spring conditions.The broader impacts of this project will include: (1) recruitment and training of graduate and undergraduate students from under-represented groups; (2) wide dissemination of research results to scientific audiences and the general public via scientific and popular articles and talks, and engagement with science journalists; (3) maintenance of Marmot Minutes (a blog), The Marmot Burrow (a website), and The Marmots of RMBL (a website); and (4) continuation of one of the world's longest-running studies that follows the fate of individually-marked mammals. This dataset has become an important window on the effects of climate change on a hibernating vertebrate, and a valuable data set that can be used to explore both population and evolutionary dynamics.