EAPSI: Population Dynamics of a Semi-Terrestrial Fishes Across the South and East China Sea

大多数鱼类仅限于水生环境，但32,000种有鳍鱼中约有70种是两栖的，或能够在陆地环境中生存，通常是为了繁殖。这一行为很重要，因为许多沿海地区由于海堤、光和噪音污染、城市化和泥滩/沿海土地的破坏而受到栖息地的破坏，使沿海栖息地在一段时间内无法居住。随着时间的推移，无法在大片地理区域内殖民沿海地区可能会危及物种的生存。虽然两栖生活史将扩散能力限制在特定的生命阶段，但许多两栖物种具有跨越多个海洋的地理分布。为了解决这些问题，这项研究的目的是了解生活史变化对弹涂鱼种群间基因流动的影响。这项研究将与张春光博士合作进行，张春光博士是一位在研究与弹涂鱼有关的适应方面具有丰富经验的研究员。张博士是中国科学院动物研究所的一名研究教授。除了之前从台湾和日本收集的样本外，我们还将研究来自大陆中国成本沿线的两栖弹涂鱼物种样本。将进行基因组测序，以了解横跨东海和南海的物种中国的种群结构。DNA序列的变化将被比较，以了解中国沿海地区和周围岛屿之间的运动模式。为了了解两栖生活史的重要性，将对照洋流和沿海土地利用来研究种群结构，以确定土地利用是否对弹涂鱼的活动起到作用。该项目将有助于弥合生活史变异的生态重要性和基因流动的进化意义之间的挥之不去的鸿沟。该奖项由东亚和太平洋暑期学院项目资助一名美国研究生的暑期研究，由美国国家科学基金会和中国科技部联合资助。

Most fishes are limited to aquatic environments, but about 70 of 32,000 ray-finned fishes, including mudskippers, are amphibious, or able to survive in terrestrial environments, often for the purposes of reproduction. This behavior is important because many coastal areas are subject to habitat destruction via sea walls, light and noise pollution, urbanization and destruction of mudflats/coastal land, making coastal habitats uninhabitable for periods of time. Over time, the inability to colonize coastal areas over a large geographic area can compromise a species' survival. While amphibious life history limits opportunities for dispersal ability to a specific life stage, many amphibious species have geographic distributions, which span multiple oceans. To address these issues, this research aims to understand the effects of variations in life history on the flow of genes across mudskipper populations. This study will be conducted in collaboration with Dr. Zhang Chunguang, a researcher with significant experience researching the adaptations of pertaining to mudskippers. Dr. Zhang is a research professor at the Institute of Zoology, Chinese Academy of Sciences.An amphibious mudskipper species samples (Periophthalmus modestus) from along the cost of mainland China will be studied, in addition to previously collected sample from Taiwan and Japan. Genomic DNA sequencing will be done to understand the population structure of the species across the East and South China Sea. Variation in DNA sequences will be compared to understand patterns of movement between coastal areas of China and the surrounding islands. To understand the importance of amphibious life history, population structure will be examined against ocean currents and coastal land use to determine if land use plays a role in movement of mudskippers. This project will help bridge the lingering gap between the ecological importance of variation in life history and evolutionary significance of gene flow. This award under the East Asia and Pacific Summer Institutes program supports summer research by a U.S. graduate student and is jointly funded by NSF and the Chinese Ministry of Science and Technology.