Experimental evolution of phenotypic plasticity

所有生物都在多变的环境中生存和进化。个人在一生中会经历不断变化的生物和非生物条件，种群在连续几代中会暴露在不同的环境中。我们经常观察到，生物体通过表现出表型可塑性来科普这种变化，表现出适应当前条件的不同形态，生理和/或行为的能力。不同的表型是由相同的基因型产生的，因此依赖于基因组的差异使用。因此，表型可塑性是基于环境特异性的基因调控。生态学家和进化生物学家对表型可塑性进行了广泛的研究，他们感兴趣的是基因型所显示的可塑性程度，其数量遗传结构以及预测可塑性进化的条件。另一方面，分子生物学家和微生物学家已经收集了大量关于环境诱导表型的分子调控的信息。然而，我们目前缺少的方法，桥梁之间的差距差距的生态条件和选择压力，他们产生的一方面，和分子的调控机制所需的塑料反应的细节。只有通过研究可塑性的进化，在这样一个综合的方式，我们将能够获得一个完整的理解，我们观察到的可塑性是如何形成的生态选择压力和基因调控的分子细节所施加的约束之间的相互作用。我们的实验策略将使我们能够使单个基因的表达受到交替的相反选择压力，并在表型和分子水平上遵循环境特异性调节的从头进化。在这个项目的过程中，我们将创建实验酵母菌株，进行中试实验以确定最佳实验条件和程序，并进行一个进化实验，作为我们方法的效用和力量的原理证明。这项实验应在同一时间产生的即时感兴趣的可验证的数据，并使我们能够最佳地指导未来的实验和进化反应的分析，这里提出的工作将奠定一个长期的研究计划的基础。我们正计划向研究委员会寻求资金，以探索不断发展的可塑性的生态背景和分子细节，将生态制度产生的选择压力与基因调控的变化联系起来。

All organisms live and evolve in variable environments. Individuals experience changing biotic and abiotic conditions over the course of their life, and populations are exposed to different environments in successive generations. We often observe that organisms cope with this variability by showing phenotypic plasticity, the capacity to express different morphologies, physiologies and/or behaviours that are adapted to the current conditions. The different phenotypes are produced from the same genotype and therefore rely on the differential use of the genome. Accordingly, phenotypic plasticity is based on environment-specific gene regulation.Phenotypic plasticity has been extensively studied by ecologists and evolutionary biologists who were interested in, amongst others, the extent of plasticity shown by genotypes, its quantitative genetic architecture and the conditions under which plasticity is predicted to evolve. Molecular biologists and microbiologists, on the other hand, have gathered a large body of information on the molecular regulation of environment-induced phenotypes. However, we are currently missing approaches that bridge the gap between ecological conditions and the selection pressures they generate on the one hand, and the molecular details of the regulatory mechanisms required for a plastic response on the other. Only by investigating the evolution of plasticity in such an integrated way will we be able to gain a complete understanding how the plasticity we observe is shaped by the interplay between ecological selection pressures and constraints imposed by the molecular details of gene regulation.Here we propose to develop an experimental evolution approach in fission yeast, Schizosaccharomyces pombe, to study the evolution of plasticity. Our experimental strategy will allow us to subject the expression of a single gene to alternating opposing selection pressures and follow the de novo evolution of environment-specific regulation at the phenotypic and molecular levels.During the course of this project we will create experimental yeast strains, conduct pilot experiments to define optimal experimental conditions and procedures, and perform an evolutionary experiment that will serve as proof-of-principle for the utility and power of our approach. This experiment should at the same time generate publishable data of immediate interest and allow us to optimally direct future experiments and analyses of evolutionary responses.The work proposed here will lay the foundations of a longer-term research programme. We are planning to seek funding from Research Councils to explore the ecological context and molecular details of evolving plasticity, linking selection pressures generated by ecological regimes to changes in gene regulation.