Collaborative Research: The impacts of mating system variation on ecological performance and evolutionary diversification in a clade of marine snails

目前，对于个体、种群和海洋生物物种之间的交配系统是如何变化的，我们几乎一无所知。事实上，描述海洋中交配系统的变化及其对基本生态和进化模式和过程的影响，现在代表了一个挑战，也许与过去三十年来许多海洋生态学家一直在研究的种群连通性一样重要。螺属是重要的潮间带捕食者，为探索交配系统如何控制关键的生态和进化过程和模式提供了一个特殊的模型系统。通过整合种群和行为生态学、生活史理论的见解，结合遗传、实验和系统发育方法，该项目将对交配系统变化对海洋系统生态和进化动力学的影响产生新的见解。该项目将极大地促进我们对海洋系统中交配系统变化如何影响个体、种群和物种的理解，对更好地预测气候变化、栖息地破碎化和收获等过程如何影响种群动态、物种形成和生态系统功能具有重要意义。通过与一些正在进行的项目合作，该项目将在现代生态学、遗传学和系统发育学方面培训大量代表性不足的学生、科学家和教师。此外，该项目还通过与探索馆、美国国家海洋和大气管理局扩大西海岸海洋保护区和推广项目、加州大学戴维斯分校和UNCW的科学交流项目等合作伙伴关系，与多个教育项目进行对接。在世界范围内，人为和自然过程正在迅速改变影响个体、种群、物种和群落特征的环境变化模式，并最终威胁到生物多样性和生态系统功能。这些威胁通常被认为是：(a)人口规模或密度的减少；(b)人口和遗传连通性的变化；(c)狭缝效应，局部密度降低限制了交配成功。虽然研究较少，特别是在海洋系统中，但环境扰动也能迅速改变种群的交配系统。大量研究表明，交配系统的种内和种间变异对广泛的生态和进化过程（如扩散、种群动态、生活史多样性和物种形成）产生重大影响，从而深刻影响海洋生态系统的可持续性。研究人员先前由美国国家科学基金会资助的工作首次在任何海洋生物中证实，交配系统强烈影响了掠食性海蜗牛Nucella ostrina的后代大小变化和生殖相容性。这项工作提出了关于海洋生物生态学的几个主要问题。通过田间实验、交配试验、遗传分析和系统发育的明确比较，本项目将全面研究交配系统在以下方面所起的基本作用：(1)产生与生态相关的性状变异；(2)促进生殖隔离；(3)塑造生活史变异的宏观生态格局。这项研究将拓宽我们对交配系统在海洋生物生态和多样化中的关键作用的理解，并为理解种群人口统计和交配系统的变化如何影响短期种群动态和对环境变化的长期响应提供基础。

At present, virtually nothing is known about how mating systems vary within and among individuals, populations, and species of marine organisms. Indeed, characterizing mating system variation in the sea, and its effects on fundamental ecological and evolutionary patterns and processes, now represents a challenge perhaps equal in importance to the study of population connectivity that has occupied many marine ecologists for the last three decades. Snails in the genus Nucella are important intertidal predators and provide an exceptional model system for exploring how mating systems control critical ecological and evolutionary processes and patterns. By integrating insights from population and behavioral ecology, and life-history theory, combined with genetic, experimental, and phylogenetic approaches, this project will generate novel insights into the impacts of mating system variation on the ecological and evolutionary dynamics of marine systems. This project will significantly advance our understanding of how mating system variation in marine systems influences individuals, populations, and species, with important implications for better predicting how processes such as climate change, habitat fragmentation, and harvesting will influence population dynamics, speciation, and ecosystem function. In collaboration with a number of ongoing programs this project will train numerous under-represented students, scientists, and teachers in modern ecology, genetics, and phylogenetics. In addition, the project interfaces with multiple educational programs through partnerships with the Exploratorium, NOAA's expansion of west coast marine sanctuaries and outreach programs, and science communications programs at UC Davis and UNCW. Worldwide, anthropogenic and natural processes are rapidly modifying patterns of environmental variation that affect the traits of individuals, populations, species, and communities, and that ultimately threaten both biodiversity and ecosystem functioning. These threats are often viewed in the context of (a) reductions in population size or density; (b) changes in demographic and genetic connectivity; and (c) Allee effects, where reduced local densities limit mating success. Though less-well studied - especially in marine systems - environmental perturbations can also rapidly alter the mating systems of populations. Numerous studies show that intra- and inter-specific variation in mating systems has major impacts on a broad spectrum of ecological and evolutionary processes (e.g., dispersal, population dynamics, life-history diversity, and speciation), that can profoundly influence the sustainability of marine ecosystems. The investigators' previous NSF-funded work established, for the first time in any marine organism, that the mating system strongly influences both offspring size variation and reproductive compatibilities in the predatory marine snail Nucella ostrina. This work raised several major questions regarding the ecology of marine organisms. Through field experiments, mating trials, genetic analyses, and phylogenetically explicit comparisons, the present project will comprehensively examine the fundamental roles that mating systems play in (1) generating ecologically relevant trait variation; (2) driving reproductive isolation; and (3) shaping macro-ecological patterns of life-history variation. This research will broaden our understanding of the critical role that mating systems play in the ecology and diversification of marine organisms, and provide the foundation for understanding how changes in population demographics and mating systems can influence both short term population dynamics and longer term responses to environmental change.