Testing the influence of long-term ecological change on evolutionary responses in zooplankton

记录、理解和预测生物体对自然和人为变化的反应是复杂的;有些反应可能是短期的，但其他反应可能是进化变化的结果。 该项目将利用长期的生态数据来询问在水生生物中观察到的变化何时、何地以及多久才能代表真正的进化反应。它的价值在于使用和分析现有数据，以提出有关生态变化性质的新问题。德克萨斯大学阿灵顿分校是一所西班牙裔服务机构; STEM领域服务不足的群体占学生人数的42%。研究人员将让本科生和研究生参与研究活动，并有明确的计划从服务不足的群体中招募学生。他将使用他的分析和由此产生的数据在本科调查为基础的实验室练习，以证明如何区分生态进化的反应，并延长他的辅导服务不足的群体。他所在机构现有的外展项目将使他能够让高中生参与暑期研究活动。通过公共宣传计划，他将提高对水生生态系统对人为变化的脆弱性和长期研究的重要性的认识。长期生态研究（LTER）网站已经记录了自然种群和社区对气温上升，城市化加剧，富营养化和外来物种传播的反应，但没有检查这些反应反映进化变化的程度。该项目的五个目标将量化长期生态变化的表型反应，使用表型作为进化反应的信号。现有的数据，样本和实验，从超过20个湖泊在威斯康星州和阿拉斯加将进行分析，以探讨浮游动物特征的变化，可能表明入侵物种的进化反应，土地利用的变化，气温上升，和营养物质的变化。已经确定了解决这些问题的适当数据集和样本，尽管有些问题需要从存档标本中进行新的测量。初步分析是挑衅性的。在某些情况下，浮游动物身体大小和丰度的变化支持捕食者诱导的选择。在其他情况下，它们与主流理论的预测相矛盾。探索性统计分析将在整个过程中用于将响应变量的变化与假定的选择压力相关联。结果将允许表型变化的克里思和轨迹在不同地点进行比较，以询问在温带和北极生态系统中是否发生类似的反应。研究者是一个早期的职业研究者;他的长期目标是将这些探索性研究建立成一个整合长期生态学和进化研究的研究项目。

Documenting, understanding, and predicting how organisms respond to natural and anthropogenic change is complicated; some responses may be short-term, but others may result from evolutionary change. This project will exploit long-term ecological data to ask when, where, and how often changes observed in aquatic organisms represent true evolutionary responses. Its value lies in the use and analysis of existing data to ask new questions about the nature of ecological changes over time. The University of Texas at Arlington is an Hispanic Serving Institution; groups under-served in STEM areas comprise 42% of the student population. The investigator will engage undergraduate and graduate students in the research activities, with clear plans to recruit students from under-served groups. He will use his analyses and resulting data in undergraduate inquiry-based laboratory exercises to demonstrate how to distinguish ecological from evolutionary responses and to extend his mentoring of under-served groups. Existing outreach programs at his institution will allow him to engage high school students in summer research activities. Through public outreach programs, he will increase awareness of the vulnerability of aquatic ecosystems to anthropogenic change and the importance of long-term research.Long-Term Ecological Research (LTER) sites have documented responses of natural populations and communities to rising temperatures, increased urbanization, eutrophication, and the spread of exotic species, but have not examined the extent to which these responses reflect evolutionary change. The five aims comprising this project will quantify phenotypic responses to long-term ecological change, using phenotype as a signal for evolutionary responses. Existing data, samples, and experiments from over twenty lakes in Wisconsin and Alaska will be analyzed to explore changes in zooplankton traits that might indicate evolutionary responses to invasive species, land use change, rising temperatures, and changes in nutrient availability. Appropriate data sets and samples to address these questions have been identified, although some questions will require new measurements from archived specimens. Preliminary analyses are provocative. In some cases, changes in zooplankton body sizes and abundances support predator-induced selection. In other cases, they contradict predictions from prevailing theory. Exploratory statistical analyses will be used throughout to relate changes in response variables to putative selection pressures. Results will allow the tempo and trajectory of phenotypic change to be compared across sites to ask whether similar responses occur in temperate and arctic ecosystems. The investigator is an early-career researcher; his longer-term goal is to build these exploratory studies into a research program that integrates long-term ecological and evolutionary studies.