Collaborative Research: The mismeasure of GxE: causes and consequences of environmental exposures for the evolution of plasticity

种群是如何在复杂多变的环境中进化的？为什么有些种群具有适应环境变化所必需的遗传变异，而另一些种群则没有？这项研究试图通过结合遗传学和行为生物学的观点来回答这些问题。研究人员将从不同个体的发育过程开始，而不是从种群水平开始研究机制，从而产生促进进化变化的变异。重点将放在个人对环境的选择（例如，住在哪里）和由环境塑造的发展过程（例如，他们后来的行为和生存）之间的关系上。这项研究将结合理论和果蝇实验，研究环境选择和发展之间的联系，以及这些联系在种群、个体和基因组尺度上的个体差异，以及在代际之间的差异。这种方法将开发和测试新的数学工具，使未来的研究人员能够预测环境变化对任何种群的进化后果。作为这项研究的一部分，研究人员将在多个机构指导和培训本科生、研究生和博士后研究人员四年；此外，他们还将为高中教师开展一个暑期研究项目，为他们提供动手研究的经验，并指导他们为课堂制定数学理论和遗传学的课程计划。因此，这项研究将揭示必要的进化基本原理，以预测人口对环境变化的脆弱性，同时培养下一代科学领袖。本研究的目标是建立一个综合的框架，将性状表达的功能遗传机制与生物体水平的环境偏好联系起来，以预测代内和代间的GxE。这项研究将结合实验和理论模型。在组织层面上，Aims将询问对特定环境的偏好和每种环境中的经验之间的联系，以及这些过程如何导致可塑性和适应性的表达模式。这种方法将有助于了解哪些个体具有可塑性，以及为什么具有可塑性。下一步是确定在环境选择和可塑性之间产生行为变异和功能联系的潜在基因表达网络。同时，研究人员将开发种群水平的理论模型，研究环境暴露的变化如何影响对环境反应的遗传变异，以及这些过程如何共同控制GxE的表达并影响其进化。通过协调实验工作和GxE进化原因的群体遗传模型，这项研究将为生物学家提供一个严格的概念工具包，从中解释或应用这些想法到任何生物体。总之，这些努力将“把碎片拼凑在一起”，以产生关于GxE及其演变的先验的、自下而上的预测，而这些预测目前尚缺乏。与此同时，研究人员将利用已确立的最佳实践，开展教师研究经验（RET）项目。通过提高教师的专业知识和重要的动手生物学研究经验，RET将影响数百名来自代表性不足群体的学生。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。

How do populations evolve in complex and changing environments? Why do some populations have the necessary genetic variation to adapt to environmental change, while others do not? This research proposes to answer these questions by combining ideas from genetics and behavioral biology. Instead of starting at the population level and working towards mechanisms, the investigators will instead start with the developmental processes that differ across individuals to produce variation that fuels evolutionary change. The focus will be on the relationship(s) between an individual’s choice of environment (e.g., where to live) and the developmental processes that are shaped by that environment (e.g., their later behavior and survival). The research will integrate theory, and experiments with fruit flies, to study the links between environment choice and development, and how these links differ between individuals, at the population, individual, and genomic scales, and across generations. This approach will develop and test new mathematical tools that will allow future researchers to predict the evolutionary consequences of environmental variation for any population. As part of this research, the investigators will mentor and train undergraduate students, graduate students, and postdoctoral researchers at multiple institutions for four years; and, they will run a summer research program for high school teachers to provide experience with hands-on research and guide them to develop lesson plans in mathematical theory and genetics for their classrooms. Therefore, this research will uncover fundamental principles of evolution necessary to predict population vulnerabilities to environmental change while training the next generation of leaders in science.The goal of this research is to develop a comprehensive framework that links functional genetic mechanisms of trait expression with organism-level environment preferences to predict GxE within and among generations. The research will combine experiments and theoretical models. At the organismal level, the Aims will interrogate links between preference for a particular environment, and experience in each environment—and how these processes result in expressed patterns of plasticity and fitness. This approach will provide understanding of which individuals will be plastic, and why. The next step is to identify underlying gene expression networks that produce variation in behavior and functional links between environment choice and plasticity. Simultaneously, the investigators will develop population level theoretical models that will examine how variation in environmental exposures influences genetic variation in responses to environments, and how these processes together control the expression of GxE and influence its evolution. By coordinating experimental work and population-genetic models of the evolutionary causes of GxE, this research will provide biologists with a rigorous conceptual toolkit from which to interpret or apply these ideas to any organism. Together, these efforts will “put the pieces together” to produce a priori, bottom-up predictions about GxE and its evolution, predictions which are currently lacking. At the same time, the investigators will run a Research Experience for Teachers (RET) program, using established best practices. The RET will impact hundreds of students from underrepresented groups by enhancing the expertise of their teachers with critical hands-on biology research experience.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.