Speciation and social plasticity: signal-preference phenotypes in social and genetic hybrids

这个项目调查社会互动如何产生动物行为的变异，潜在地导致物种形成。除了熟悉的新突变导致新特征的模式外，最近的研究表明，社会互动也可能使现有的基因变异面临更广泛的选择，促进差异和物种形成。自然动物种群是否以及如何适应新环境的影响对社会具有广泛的相关性和实用性，这项工作有助于阐明适应新环境的条件可能比目前预期的更快。该项目集研究、指导、教学和社区推广于一体，研究以植物为食的昆虫与植物传播的振动信号进行交流，以及这些昆虫密切相关物种之间的行为接触如何导致它们的交配信号和交配偏好发生变化。该项目涉及高级和初级研究人员之间的跨大西洋合作；研究人员的资源开发(广泛和免费地提供新的软件工具)；针对博士毕业生的替代职业培训轨道的试点计划；针对家庭的社区推广；以及利用主办大学作为城市准入大学的地位，扩大未被充分代表的群体在科学领域的参与。当种群在生态和生殖特征上的差异是通过单一基因座的变化实现的时，生物学家可以最好地概念化物种形成。但物种形成往往涉及复杂的多基因特征组合的差异，在这些情况下如何建立和维持连锁不平衡尚不清楚。这个项目将测试一个假设，即社会可塑性可以导致交配信号和交配偏好等多基因特征共同分化，就像它们受单个基因座控制一样。这可以在物种形成的早期阻止不同种群之间的基因流动，并有助于建立连锁不平衡。这将把最简单的已知物种形成方案的效率扩展到涉及多基因特征差异的情况。该项目融合了经验和理论两种方法。该提案的经验部分将使用树蝉的Enchenopa binotata物种复合体。这组以植物为食的昆虫提供了一个信号-偏好共同分歧的案例研究，在分析信号和偏好变化的原因和后果时提供了不同寻常的解决方案。实验将对比交配信号和交配偏好的表型差异，这是由于在模仿密切相关物种之间首次接触的条件下发展的，以及由于遗传杂交而产生的。对这一假说的支持要求信号和偏好在新生物种之间第一次接触时由于社会可塑性而共同发散。该项目还将评估社会可塑性反应的地理差异，以检验强化对信号偏好可塑性的竞争性假说。理论工作将推广对假设的实证测试。这一奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的智力优势和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

This project investigates how social interactions produce variants in animal behavior, potentially leading to speciation. Besides the familiar pattern where new mutations lead to new traits, recent work indicates that social interactions may also expose existing genetic variation to selection much more broadly, facilitating divergence and speciation. The implications for whether and how natural animal populations adapt to new environments are of broad relevance and utility to society, and this work helps to elucidate the conditions under which adaptation to novel environments may be faster than currently anticipated. The project integrates research, mentorship, teaching, and community outreach to study plant-feeding insects that communicate with plant-borne vibrational signals, and the ways in which behavioral encounters between closely related species of these insects induce variation in their mating signals and mate preferences. The project involves a trans-Atlantic collaboration between senior and junior researchers; resource-development for researchers (making new software tools broadly and freely available); a pilot program for alternative-career training track in software development for PhD graduates; community outreach for families; and leveraging the host university's position as an urban-access university to broaden the participation of under-represented groups in science.Biologists can best conceptualize speciation when population divergence in ecological and reproductive traits is accomplished by changes in a single locus. But speciation often involves divergence in complex suites of polygenic traits, and it is not clear how linkage disequilibrium is established and sustained in these cases. This project will test the hypothesis that social plasticity can cause polygenic traits such as mating signals and mate preferences to co-diverge as if they were controlled by a single locus. This could prevent gene flow between diverging populations early in speciation and help build up linkage disequilibrium. This would extend the efficiency of the simplest known speciation scenario to cases involving divergence in polygenic traits. The project integrates both empirical and theoretical approaches. The empirical component of the proposal will use the Enchenopa binotata species complex of treehoppers. This group of plant-feeding insects offer a case study of signal-preference co-divergence that provides unusual resolution in the analysis of the causes and consequences of variation in signals and preferences. Experiments will contrast phenotypic variation in mating signals and mate preferences due to developing in conditions mimicking first contact between closely related species with that due to genetic hybridization. Support for the hypothesis requires that signals and preferences co-diverge due to social plasticity upon first contact between nascent species. The project will also assess geographic variation in the social plastic response to test the competing hypothesis of reinforcement on signal-preference plasticity. Theoretical work will generalize the empirical tests of the hypotheses.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.