RoL: FELS: EAGER: Landscape Phenomics: Predicting vulnerability to climate variation by linking environmental heterogeneity to genetic and phenotypic variation

生物多样性至关重要，然而，由于地球的环境变化和人类发展，生物多样性正在发生前所未有的损失。由于许多物种在过去和现在的变化中幸存下来，了解它们是如何做到的可以为保护生物多样性提供线索。这个项目试图通过评估影响物种在其自然范围内生存的不同因素来解决这个问题。研究小组将重点研究尾蛙，这种蛙只生活在美国太平洋西北部寒冷、湍急的山间溪流中。在这个地区，许多青蛙生活在比高海拔栖息地更温暖的低海拔栖息地。随着气候变暖，这些种群可能是第一批经历温度高于尾蛙所能忍受的温度的种群。然而，与那些只生活在寒冷、高海拔溪流中的青蛙相比，来自这些种群的青蛙也可能能够忍受更高的温度。该项目将研究尾蛙或类似物种如何在面对温度变化的情况下生存的影响。揭示物种如何持续存在的这些规则，需要了解环境的差异如何影响热耐受性和其他特征，这些特征可以使物种在条件随时间改变时存活下来。该项目将为一名博士后、研究生和本科生提供研究培训和指导。研究人员将使用一个四管齐下的综合框架来揭示脆弱性的空间模式规则。本研究将环境异质性与恢复力性状的遗传和表型变异联系起来。首先，本研究将对尾蛙种群热环境和食物资源的变化进行表征。其次，它将使用景观基因组学方法测试景观异质性对全基因组变异和微进化过程（选择、漂变和基因流）的影响。第三，利用数量遗传学、全基因组关联研究和驯化实验，估计遗传和环境对产生与热性能相关的关键抗灾性状变异的贡献。最后，他们将通过模拟河流温度、食物资源、性状和种群反应的变化来预测当前和未来的温度耐受性和种群脆弱性。该奖项反映了美国国家科学基金会的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的知识价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

Biodiversity is critically important, however unprecedented losses are occurring in response to environmental change and human development of the planet. Since many species have survived past and present changes, understanding how they do so can provide clues for conserving biodiversity. This project seeks to address this question by evaluating different factors that contribute to a species' survival within its natural range. The research team will focus on the tailed frog, which lives only in cold, fast-flowing mountain streams in the U.S. Pacific Northwest. Within this region, many populations of frogs live in low elevation habitats that are warmer than high elevation habitats. These populations are likely to be the first to experience temperatures higher than what tailed frogs can tolerate as climates warm. It is possible, however, that frogs from these populations may also be able to tolerate warmer temperatures relative to those that live only in colder, high-elevation streams. This project will examine the implications for how tailed frogs or similar species might survive in the face changes in temperature. Uncovering these rules for how species may persist requires understanding how differences in the environment affect thermal tolerance and other traits that can allow species to survive as conditions are altered over time. This project will provide research training and mentoring for a postdoctoral scholar, and graduate and undergraduate students.The researchers will uncover rules for spatial patterns of vulnerability using a four-pronged integrative framework. This research links environmental heterogeneity to genetic and phenotypic variation in resilience traits. First, the study will characterize variation in the thermal environment and food resources in tailed frog streams. Second, it will test the effects of landscape heterogeneity on genome-wide variation and microevolutionary processes (selection, drift, and gene flow) using a landscape genomics approach. Third, it will estimate the contributions of genetics and the environment in generating variation in key resilience traits related to thermal performance using quantitative genetics, a genome-wide association study, and acclimation experiments. Finally, they will predict current and future temperature tolerance and population vulnerability by modeling changes in stream temperature, food resources, traits, and population responses.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.