Eco-Evolutionary Response to the Scale of Temporal Environmental Fluctuation

生态进化对时间环境波动规模的反应

基本信息

批准号：
1851489
负责人：
John Wootton
金额：
$ 45.96万
依托单位：
University of Chicago
依托单位国家：
美国
项目类别：
Standard Grant
财政年份：
2019
资助国家：
美国
起止时间：
2019-05-15 至 2023-04-30
项目状态：
已结题

来源：
https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=1851489&HistoricalAwards=false
关键词：
Eco Evolutionary Response Scale Temporal

项目摘要

Cyclical variations in environmental conditions, like tides or seasons, comprise a common theme in nature. Living organisms must cope with repetitive arrivals of unfavorable conditions for survival. Therefore species around the world are under evolutionary pressure to schedule their "life cycles" or "life histories" to fit the environmental cycle regimes within which they reside. Recent climate change has shifted historical cyclical patterns in many ecosystems, such as season length, resulting in mismatches between life histories and the ideal environmental conditions of plants and animals, to the detriment of population persistence and ecological stability. Adaptive evolution offers a mechanism that may buffer these mismatches. Accumulating evidence of shifts in life history schedules from around the world shows us that much remains to be done to understand how life histories are "fit" to environmental cycles, and to changes in cycles, despite their everyday familiarity. Testing theoretical ideas with data and experiments is essential. Marine coastal habitats are subject to conspicuous cycles occurring at multiple time scales, such as diel, tidal, lunar, seasonal, and multi-annual fluctuations. Populations of the intertidal crustacean Tigriopus californicus occupy rocky shore across the entire eastern Pacific coastline in upper tidepools that are periodically wave-swept at high tide at varying intervals. This project develops mathematical models to uncover fundamental rules of life history variation and adaptation in regularly varying environments, and tests hypotheses across Tigriopus californicus populations experiencing varying tidal disturbances using efficient and highly replicated field collections and manipulative experiments in the lab. Beyond producing broadly applicable theory and abundant open-access data, the investigators engage with local Makah Tribe students near field sites for sampling and natural history studies to enhance STEM education in an underserved rural community. Furthermore, the project expands the nation?s scientific capacity by training undergraduate and graduate students in experimental design, theoretical modelling in population ecology and life history evolution, and data analysis.How natural populations persist in variable environments has been a long-standing question in ecology and evolution. In particular, cyclical variability is common in nature, and many species show predictable life history strategies that follow cycles in nature (e.g. phenology). However, a general conceptual framework is lacking for how adaptation to cycles occurs and how the scaling of life histories to fluctuations buffers changes in the environment. Marine environments fluctuate predictably across a range of temporal scales, such as tidal and seasonal, and provide unique opportunities to study population persistence and evolution in cyclical environments. A general mathematical framework is developed that explores life history optimization in the context of cyclically varying environments. The marine intertidal copepod Tigriopus californcus is ideal for testing model predictions and motivating extensions. Many isolated populations can be sampled entirely in the field, and the short timescale of tide cycles, short generation times, and ease of frequent sampling will provide a dense dataset of eco-evolutionary patterns in response to natural disturbance regimes. Pilot studies have established experimental populations in the laboratory, and have proven that Tigriopus californcus is amenable to careful manipulations of simulated disturbance frequency (both cyclical and stochastic) that seamlessly translate to the model framework. The combination of modelling, field parameterization, and experimental investigation of life histories in cyclical and stochastic environments is a novel and holistic approach to the question of life history diversity within an environment. Finally, a general understanding of evolutionary mechanisms in cyclical environments can improve predictions of the fate of populations when natural cycles are perturbed, which is expected across many ecosystems due to climate change.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.

环境条件（如潮汐或季节）的周期性变化包括自然界中的共同主题。活生物体必须应对生存不利条件的重复到达。因此，世界各地的物种正处于进化压力下，以安排其“生命周期”或“生命历史”以适合其居住的环境周期制度。最近的气候变化改变了许多生态系统（例如季节长度）的历史周期性模式，导致生活历史与动植物的理想环境条件之间的不匹配，从而损害了种群持久性和生态稳定性。自适应进化提供了一种可能缓解这些不匹配的机制。积累了世界各地生活历史时间表变化的证据，这向我们表明，尽管有日常熟悉，但仍有许多事情要了解生活历史如何“适合”环境周期以及周期的变化。使用数据和实验测试理论思想至关重要。海洋沿海栖息地受到在多个时间尺度上发生的明显周期，例如迪尔，潮汐，月球，季节性和多年的波动。潮间带甲壳类Tigriopus加利福尼亚州的种群占据了上层潮汐池的整个东部太平洋海岸线上的岩石海岸，这些海岸在更高的潮汐中以不同的间隔在高潮时会浪费。该项目开发了数学模型，以发现定期变化的环境中的基本历史差异和适应性的基本规则，并通过使用有效且高度重复的现场收集和实验中的操纵实验来测试加利福尼亚州tigriopus californicus种群之间的假设。除了生成广泛适用的理论和大量的开放访问数据外，研究人员还与当地的马卡部落学生互动，以进行采样和自然史研究，以增强服务不足的农村社区的STEM教育。此外，该项目通过培训实验设计的本科生和研究生来扩大国家的科学能力，人口生态学和生活史的理论建模以及数据分析。自然种群在可变环境中如何持续存在是生态学和进化的长期问题。特别是，周期性的可变性在本质上很普遍，许多物种都表现出可预测的生活历史策略，这些策略遵循自然界的周期（例如物候）。但是，缺乏对周期的适应方式以及生活历史对波动的缩放如何缓冲环境中的变化的一般概念框架。海洋环境在潮汐和季节性等各种时间尺度上可预测地波动，并为研究人口持久性和周期性环境中的演变提供了独特的机会。开发了一个一般的数学框架，该框架探讨了周期性变化的环境中的生命历史优化。海洋潮间带Copepod Tigriopus Califorcus是测试模型预测和激励扩展的理想选择。许多孤立的种群可以完全在田间进行采样，潮汐周期，短生成时间和易于频繁采样的时间尺度将提供一个对自然干扰方案的浓缩生态进化模式的数据集。试点研究已经在实验室中建立了实验人群，并证明了Tigriopus Californcus可以仔细操纵模拟干扰频率（周期性和随机性），这些操纵无缝地转化为模型框架。周期性和随机环境中生命历史的建模，现场参数化和实验研究的结合是一种新颖而整体的方法，可以解决环境中生活历史多样性的问题。最后，对周期性环境中进化机制的一般理解可以改善自然周期扰动时人口命运的预测，这是由于气候变化而导致的许多生态系统的预期。该奖项反映了NSF的法定任务，并通过使用该基金会的知识优点和广泛影响来评估NSF的法定任务，并被认为是值得的支持。