How do species emerge?

生存、繁殖和死亡的不是个体特征，而是整个个体。对一种性状的选择可以产生对其他性状选择的反应。这种进化限制是由遗传、生理或自然选择施加的，并且可以通过引导进化向遗传抗性最小的方向发展来限制适应，这种进化的特征是丰富的表型变异。但是，如果约束只能引导适应沿着可预测的路径进行，那么新物种如何从它们的祖先中分离出来，形成独特的生态进化角色？尽管辛普森将动态适应性景观比喻为“波涛汹涌的海洋”，但适应性峰值的位置和拓扑结构普遍被认为是恒定的。本博士的目标是跟踪新物种出现过程中形态方差-协方差矩阵的差异，寻找物种形成动力学中的“临界点”1，以填补新物种出现过程中进化约束如何变化的经验证据空白。该项目将在Goswami的第二小组中由ERC资助的研究开发的比较分析技术与在Ezard的研究小组中由NERC资助的研究收集的数据结合起来。

It is not individual traits that survive, reproduce and die, but whole individuals. Selection on one trait can generate a response to selection in others. This evolutionary constraint is imposed by heredity, physiology or natural selection and can limit adaptation by channeling evolution in the direction of least genetic resistance characterized by abundant phenotypic variability. But if constraint only channels adaptation down predictable paths, how do new species break away from their ancestors to forge distinct eco-evolutionary roles? Despite Simpson's "choppy sea" metaphor of a dynamic adaptive landscape, the location and topology of fitness peaks are ubiquitously assumed constant. The goal of this PhD is to track how morphological variance-covariance matrices differ during the emergence of new species, searching for "tipping points" 1 in the dynamics of speciation to fill the empirical evidence gap of how evolutionary constraints change during the emergence of new species. This project brings together comparative analytical techniques developed on ERC funded research in Goswami's group 2 with data gathered on NERC funded research in Ezard's research group.