Ecological opportunity and the origins of novel biodiversity

我们的长期研究计划解决了关于资源多态性形式的生物多样性如何在生活在不同湖泊栖息地的交替生态型组成的单一鱼类种群中产生的基本问题。我们的nserc资助的研究项目在经验和概念上为适应性分化理论做出了贡献，这是用来理解生物多样性形成的核心框架。我们确定并测试了调节特化生态型形成的因素，并通过纳入表型可塑性在特化中的作用及其对适应分化的影响来扩展理论。自1993年以来对南瓜籽翻车鱼（13篇文章）和其他鱼类（10篇文章）资源多态性的长期研究经验使我们能够独特地研究调节多种生态型如何进化以及如何转化为新物种的因果因素。这项工作的重要性不仅在于它与生物多样性形成的关系，而且还在于很少在生态功能、管理和保护或其缓冲种群免受环境变化不利影响的能力的背景下考虑种群内部的多样性。对自然种群的长期研究为解决有关多样化的新问题提供了重要的生态学理解。共同发生生态型的适应性分化的关键问题是交配和性重组破坏了在不同栖息地专化选择所青睐的有用基因的组合，从而阻止了遗传上不同生态型的形成。然而，这些生态型在加拿大的鱼类中很常见，为我们提供了在其早期阶段研究生物多样性形成过程的机会。我们的长期目标集中在理解产生选择的过程，以及允许个体进行选择性交配的过程。在接下来的5年里，我们将研究扩散如何影响生态型是否与自己的生态型或不同的生态型相遇和交配，竞争在生态型专业化选择中所起的作用，以及不同湖泊栖息地的认知挑战如何影响不同栖息地鱼类的大脑大小和行为。这项工作将为我们理解自然环境下的分歧过程做出新的贡献。重要的是，我们的实地和实验室研究是我HQP培训计划的重要组成部分。在过去的6年里，我们的研究支持了27名HQP的培训，产生了10篇出版物（加上1篇出版，2篇修改后重新提交）和超过31篇HQP会议演讲。在接下来的5年里，HQP将在涉及鱼类各个生命阶段的广泛的野外生态和实验室方法方面获得经验，并进行大量的分析培训。共有3名博士，1名硕士和20多名本科生将受益于这项发现请求所支持的研究。

Our long-term research program addresses fundamental questions about how biodiversity in the form of resource polymorphism arises within single populations of fishes composed of alternate ecotypes that live in different lake habitats. Our NSERC-funded research program has contributed empirically and conceptually to the theory of adaptive divergence, the central framework used to understand biodiversity formation. We identify and test factors that regulate the formation of specialized ecotypes, and have expanded theory by including a role for phenotypic plasticity in specialization and its influence on adaptive divergence. Long-term experience with resource polymorphism in pumpkinseed sunfish since 1993 (13 articles) and other fishes (10 articles) uniquely positions us to investigate causal factors that regulate how multiple ecotypes evolve and how this may be converted into new species. This work is important not just in its relation to biodiversity formation, but also because diversity within populations is rarely considered in the contexts of ecological function, management and conservation, or its capacity to buffer populations from adverse effects of environmental change. Long-term studies in natural populations provide the vital ecological understanding required to address novel questions about diversification. The key problem for the adaptive divergence of co-occurring ecotypes is that mating and sexual recombination break down combinations of useful genes favored by selection for specializing in different habitats, preventing the formation of genetically distinct ecotypes. Yet these ecotypes are common in Canada's fishes, providing us with the opportunity to study biodiversity formation processes at their earliest stages. Our long-term objectives focus on understanding the processes that generate selection and that allow individuals to mate assortatively. Over the next 5 years, we will study how dispersal influences whether ecotypes encounter and mate with their own or a different ecotype, the role competition plays in generating selection for ecotype specialization, and how the cognitive challenges of different lake habitats influence brain size and behaviour of fish in different habitats. This work will make novel contributions to our understanding of divergence processes in a natural context. Importantly, our field and lab-based research comprises an essential part of my HQP training program. Over the last 6 years, our research has supported the training of 27 HQP, that generated 10 publications (plus 1 in press and 2 resubmitted after revision) and more than 31 HQP conference presentations. Over the next 5 years, HQP will gain experience in a wide array of field ecological and lab methods involving various life stages of fishes and considerable analytical training. A total of 3 PhD, 1 MSc and more than 20 undergraduates will benefit from the research enabled by this Discovery request.