Ecology, evolution, and adaptation in small populations

环境变化是对物种和生态系统的关键威胁，但这种变化可以通过多种途径和进化时间尺度发挥作用。因此，社会需要对个人、人口、社区和生态系统进行详细的长期研究，以可靠地描述和解释对人类生活和福祉至关重要的过程。具体地说，平均或极端气候条件的变化会极大地影响对地球上的生命至关重要的人口的生产力和持久性。人类影响栖息地类型、质量和丰度的方式的改变，通过改善某些物种的条件，但往往减少了维持稀有、濒危和/或具有文化重要性的物种所需的条件，进一步影响了人类和非人类种群。因此，识别和区分受管理和未受管理的鸟类、哺乳动物和植物种群的这种影响一直是我32年来工作的重点。由于这些因素可以推动物种的进化变化，以及物种的持久性，我的工作包括将进化理论应用于物种和生态系统的保护和管理。这项建议概述了对现有理论的测试，使用了两项对植物和动物种群进行了20-47年监测的比较和横断面研究，包括：1)对自由生活的鸟类(歌雀、甜椒)的遗传学、人口学和个体生活史进行了最详细的研究，以及2)海绵种群的种群遗传学和人口学。海绵是一种一年生植物，在BC、WA和OR的300个种群中进行了研究。我在每项研究中的目标都是相辅相成的，包括：1)确定导致人口统计学变化的非生物和生物驱动因素之间的联系，以及2)利用这种理解来预测未来持续的环境变化可能如何影响生活史进化、人口增长和物种范围限制。实现这些目标将从根本上帮助我们在未来管理环境效益和服务方面取得成功，ALOS对应用于野生种群的人口统计学和进化理论中的关键预测进行了极其严格的测试。由于解决这些问题的共识很少，数据也有限，我对表型、基因、生活史、自然选择、种群增长和持久性的长期研究，为对基础和应用生态学与进化的接口感兴趣的研究生和博士后研究员提供了有希望的机会。我的研究成果对于以适度的成本回答有关自由生活物种的生态学和进化动力学的复杂问题将特别有价值，并有可能极大地改善对稀有物种的管理，否则这些稀有物种是不可能进行详细研究的。

Environmental change is a key threat to species and ecosystems, but such changes can act via multiple paths and over evolutionary timescales. As a consequence, society  requires detailed, longterm studies of individuals, populations, communities, and ecosystems to reliably characterize and explain process critical to human life and well-being. Specifically, change in average or extreme climatic conditions can dramatically affect the productivity and persistence of populations essential to life on earth. Change in the ways humans influence habitat type, quality and abundance further affect human and non-human populations alike by enhancing conditions for some species, but often reducing conditions necessary to maintain rare, endagered, and/or culturally important species.  As a consequence, identifying and disentangling such effects in managed and unmanaged bird, mammal, and plant populations has been the focus of my work for 32yrs. Because such factors can drive evolutionary change, as well as the persistence of species, my work included the application of evolutionary theory to the conservation and management of species and ecosystems.  This proposal outline tests of existing theory using two comparative and cross-sectional studies of plant and animal populations monitored for periods of 20-47 yrs, including: 1) the most detailed study of the genetics, demography and individual life history of a free-living bird ever undertaken (song sparrows, Melospiza melodia) and 2) the population genetics and demography of Seablush (Plectritis congesta), an annual plant studied in = 300 populations across its range in BC, WA and OR. My goals in each study are complimentary and include: 1) identifying links between abiotic and biotic drivers of change in population demography, and 2) using this understanding to predict how continued environmental change in future may influence life history evolution, population growth and species range limits. Achieving these goals will contribute fundamentally to our success in managing environmental benefits and services in future, and alos offer extremely rigorous tests of critical predictions in demographic and evolutionary theory applied to wild populations. Because there is little consensus and limited data to resolve such issues, my longterm studies of variation in phenotype, genotype, life history, natural selection, and population growth and persistence offer promising opportunities to graduate students and post-doctoral fellows interested in the interface of fundamental and applied ecology and evolution. My results will be particularly valuable to answering complex questions about the ecology and evolutionary dynamics of free-living species at modest cost and have the potential to dramatically improve the management of rare species that are otherwise impossible to study in detail.