Recurrent adaptation to industrial pollution: ancestral diversity and ecological succession

自然种群通过表型变异适应新的环境，表型变异起源于当代突变事件或先前存在的祖先变异，或两者兼而有之。了解这些进化模式在真实生态环境中的重要性，对于预测适应新挑战的速度，从而在面对环境变化的情况下进行知情的人口管理干预至关重要--但我们缺乏适当的实证研究。胡椒蛾(Biston Betularia)的工业黑化已成为此类研究的首选。在英国，黑色(碳酸)是由于最近的一种特殊突变，而在欧洲大陆，初步数据表明突变的多样性令人惊讶，其中一些可能适应前工业和前农业、以森林为主的景观。因此，著名的英国案例可能并不能普遍代表整个物种范围内工业黑化的进化起源。休眠背景中的自然异质性，与演替周转和广泛的成熟森林有关，可能是维持该物种黑色形式惊人多样性的未被认识的因素。通过揭示导致欧洲大陆人群黑化的突变的身份，估计他们的年龄，并评估维持黑化的非工业环境因素，该项目将解决这一有影响力的进化生物学案例研究中的一个主要谜题，同时提供一种新的说明，说明基因组结构、生态学和地理隔离之间的相互作用如何影响进化机制。

Natural populations adapt to novel environments via phenotypic variation that has its origins either in contemporary mutation events or in pre-existing ancestral variation, or both. Understanding the significance of these modes of evolution in real ecological settings is central to predicting the speed of adaptation to novel challenges, and thus to informed population management intervention in the face of environmental change - but we lack suitable empirical studies. Industrial melanism in the peppered moth (Biston betularia) has emerged as a top candidate for such a study. In Britain, the black (carbonaria) form is due to a singular recent mutation, whereas in continental Europe, preliminary data suggests a surprising diversity of mutations, some of which may be adapted to a pre-industrial and pre-agricultural, forest-dominated landscape. Thus, the celebrated British case may not be generally representative of the evolutionary origins of industrial melanism across the species' range. Natural heterogeneity in resting backgrounds, associated with successional turnover and extensive mature forests, may be the unrecognised factor maintaining the striking diversity of melanic forms in this species. By revealing the identity of the mutations causing melanism in continental European populations, estimating their age, and evaluating non-industrial environmental factors maintaining melanism, this project will resolve a major puzzle in this influential evolutionary biology case study, whilst at the same time providing a novel illustration of how the interplay between genomic architecture, ecology, and geographic isolation influences mechanisms of evolution.