CAREER: Linking microevolution to macroevolution using a high resolution, long term fossil stickleback dataset

该奖项的全部或部分资金来自《2021年美国救援计划法案》(公法117-2)。生物学家能否利用当前对种群和作用于种群的力量的知识来帮助预测进化的长期结果？为了回答这个问题，皮斯图尔特将研究三刺鱼(背腹鱼)的化石谱系中两万年的进化。斯图尔特将测量早期种群的特征，并测试这些信息是否允许人们预测在种群轨迹结束时观察到的进化。能够对进化做出预测是高度相关的，因为它与大流行预测、传染病和癌症药物的设计以及预测农业和农业害虫将如何应对人类活动有关。因此，这个项目关系到国家的健康、繁荣和福利。使用博物馆收藏的G.doryssus化石，Stuart将测量从~4500条鱼样本中获得的19个解剖特征，其连续性、分辨率和时间长度在对现存或灭绝物种的研究中是罕见的。因为斯图尔特是通过时间直接观察单一谱系的进化，所以祖先的形式是已知的。因此，斯图尔特可以更好地询问进化变化的速度，选择如何塑造进化趋势，祖先特征的相关性如何制约进化，以及约束本身是否进化。这种研究有机体还有一个额外的力量，就是成为刺鱼和一个家庭的一部分，这个家庭的进化、生态学、遗传学和发育已经在活着的种群中得到了彻底的研究。因此，斯图尔特可以将观察到的多年生G.doryssus的变化置于更广泛的生物学背景中，以更好地回答宏观进化是否是可预测的大规模微观进化。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 award is funded in whole or in part under the American Rescue Plan Act of 2021 (Public Law 117-2).Can biologists use current knowledge of populations and the forces acting on them to help predict long-term outcomes of evolution? To answer this question, PI Stuart will study 20,000 years of evolution in a fossilized lineage of Three spine Stickleback fish (Gasterosteus doryssus). Stuart will measure characteristics of the early population and test whether that information allows one to predict the evolution observed by the end of the population’s trajectory. Being able to make predictions about evolution is highly relevant as it relates to pandemic forecasting, the design of medicines for infectious disease and cancer, as well as predicting how agriculture and agricultural pests will respond to human activity. As such, this project has relevance to national health, prosperity, and welfare. Using a museum collection of fossil G. doryssus, Stuart will measure 19 anatomical traits from ~4,500 fish sampled at a continuity, resolution, and length of time rarely available in studies of living or extinct species. Because Stuart is observing evolution directly in a single lineage through time, the ancestral form is known. Thus, Stuart can better ask about rates of evolutionary change, how selection shaped evolutionary trends, how ancestral trait correlations constrained evolution, and whether a constraint itself evolved. This study organism has the added strength of being a stickleback and part of a family whose evolution, ecology, genetics, and development have been thoroughly studied in living populations. As such, Stuart can place observed change in G. doryssus into a broader biological context to better answer whether macroevolution is microevolution predictably writ large.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.