Understanding Growth and Developmental Responses of Ectotherms to Fluctuating Environments: Beyond Performance Curves

了解变温动物对波动环境的生长和发育反应：超越性能曲线

• 批准号: 1555959
• 负责人: Joel Kingsolver
• 金额: $ 68.09万
• 依托单位: University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Continuing Grant
• 财政年份: 2016
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2016-02-15 至 2021-01-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=1555959&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: Understanding; Growth; Developmental; Responses; Ectotherms

Understanding how organisms respond and adapt to fluctuating environments is a major challenge for biologists. The responses of an organism to current environmental conditions can depend on conditions it experienced in the past, due to either stress (negative effects) or acclimation (positive effects). Biologists currently lack a framework for understanding and quantifying those effects: the goal of this project is to develop and test such a framework, using the growth responses of a model system, the Tobacco Hornworm (Manduca sexta), to variable temperatures. The research integrates physiological experiments, genomics analyses and mathematical models to predict the consequences of stress and acclimation on growth, development and survival, and to test these predictions for unpredictable temperature conditions. This new framework will allow a quantitative understanding of responses of Tobacco Hornworms and other agricultural pests to variability in weather; the general framework should be applicable to most other 'cold-blooded' animals. The project provides research training and experience for undergraduate and graduate students, and develops a new citizen science program for monitoring butterflies and moths in the piedmont region of North Carolina.During the course of a single lifespan, terrestrial ectotherms often experience wide variation in temperature and other environmental factors. An individual's performance can vary with temperature, represented as a thermal performance curve (TPC), and TPCs are the basis for many models predicting organismal responses to fluctuating temperatures. However, many ectotherms exhibit time-dependent effects, including stress responses and acclimation, where the duration and order of prior temperature exposure affect organismal performance; these effects are ignored in the standard TPC approach. The studies proposed here develop and test a new framework for incorporating time-dependent effects into models of ectotherm performance, using growth rate of Manduca sexta larvae in fluctuating temperatures as a model system. The proposed studies integrate physiological experiments, functional genomic and protein analyses, and mathematical models to develop and parameterize a systems modeling framework for stress and acclimation responses, and test predictions from this model in response to stochastic variation in diurnal temperature fluctuations. The proposed research will provide the bases for a new conceptual and modeling framework for understanding and predicting the effects of variation in temperature and climate on growth and fitness of ectotherms. The project provides research training and experience for undergraduate and graduate students, and develops a new citizen science program for monitoring butterflies and moths in the piedmont region of North Carolina.

了解生物如何反应并适应波动环境是生物学家的主要挑战。有机体对当前环境条件的反应可能取决于其过去经历的条件，这是由于压力（负面影响）或适应（积极影响）。 目前，生物学家缺乏理解和量化这些影响的框架：该项目的目的是使用模型系统的增长响应，烟草虫（Manduca sexta）来开发和测试这样的框架，以对可变温度。该研究将生理实验，基因组学分析和数学模型整合在一起，以预测压力和适应对生长，发育和生存的后果，并测试这些预测是否对不可预测的温度条件。这个新的框架将可以定量了解烟草虫和其他农业害虫对天气变异性的反应；一般框架应适用于大多数其他“冷血”动物。 该项目为本科生和研究生提供研究培训和经验，并制定了一项新的公民科学计划，用于监测北卡罗来纳州皮埃蒙特地区的蝴蝶和飞蛾。在单个寿命的过程中，陆地上的热热通常会在温度和温度上体验到广泛的差异其他环境因素。一个人的性能随温度而变化，表示为热性能曲线（TPC），而TPC是许多预测有机体反应波动温度的模型的基础。然而，许多次热的效果表现出时间依赖性效应，包括压力反应和适应性，在此，先前温度暴露的持续时间和顺序会影响有机性能。这些效果在标准TPC方法中被忽略。此处提出的研究开发并测试了一个新框架，将时间依赖性效应纳入阶层性能模型，并使用在波动的温度中作为模型系统的Manduca Sexta幼虫的增长率。拟议的研究将生理实验，功能基因组和蛋白质分析以及数学模型整合在一起，以开发和参数化压力和适应反应的系统建模框架，并测试该模型对昼夜温度波动的随机变化的测试预测。拟议的研究将为一个新的概念和建模框架提供基础，以理解和预测温度和气候变化对Ectotherms的生长和适应性的影响。该项目为本科和研究生提供研究培训和经验，并开发了一项新的公民科学计划，用于监测北卡罗来纳州皮埃蒙特地区的蝴蝶和飞蛾。