Testing how developmental pathways can predict evolutionary adaptation to climate change: an Eco-Devo approach.

测试发育途径如何预测对气候变化的进化适应：Eco-Devo 方法。

• 批准号: MR/V024744/1
• 负责人: Vicencio Oostra
• 金额: $ 183.19万
• 依托单位: University of Liverpool
• 依托单位国家: 英国
• 项目类别: Fellowship
• 财政年份: 2022
• 资助国家: 英国
• 起止时间: 2022 至 无数据
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://gtr.ukri.org/projects?ref=MR%2FV024744%2F1
• 关键词: Testing; how; developmental; pathways; predict

The world's climate is changing at an unprecedented rate, with dire consequences for biodiversity and ecosystems on which we depend for our survival. To have a chance at managing this transition, we urgently need to identify which species are at risk, and what determines their fate. One key route to resilience is to evolve rapidly enough to keep up with climate change. Unfortunately, the factors that govern limits to and potential for rapid adaptation are poorly understood, and consequently we lack actionable tools that allow us to predict which species can adapt, and where they are vulnerable. Plasticity is the ability of individuals to exploit predictive environmental cues in order to optimally match morphology, behaviour, and life cycle events to current or future conditions, for instance between seasons. It is accomplished via developmental cascades that translate cues into coherent trait changes, via sensing mechanisms, hormonal signalling pathways, genetic regulators, and ultimately downstream effector genes. The growing concern is that climate change is making cues less reliable, as well as changing the optimal balance between traits. Under climate change, previously adaptive existing plastic responses are now leading to mismatches between the environment and expressed traits, and unless populations can rapidly evolve new responses, they may face extinction. I have already demonstrated that capacity to evolve is absent in some populations.Progress to understand limits to rapid adaptation, and in particular the role of plasticity, has been hampered by fragmentation across disciplines. While mechanistic biology has made great strides in disentangling the gene networks and developmental pathways by which the genome makes a multicellular organism, the role of the environment has typically been ignored as noise. Worse, most studies have been carried out in artificial lab environments, far from the complexities of the real world where plastic responses evolve and where they could potentially aid climate resilience. On the other hand, predictive models of climate change resilience which guide species vulnerability assessments suffer from limited explanatory power as they ignore important biological mechanisms such as phenotypic plasticity, adaptation, and genetics. Rapid adaptation is particularly poorly integrated into these resilience models, due to lack of high-quality empirical data and analytical methods to integrate different types of data.I have pioneered integrative approaches that bring together developmental, evolutionary, and ecological analytical methods, and have set up tropical butterflies as a powerful model to implement this agenda. Excitingly, new analytical methods in DNA sequencing, genetics, and statistics now hold the promise to connect previously disparate fields. My multidisciplinary research places me in a unique position to exploit these new technological developments, and realise adaptive capacity as a common currency between mechanistic and conservation biology. Specifically, is genetic variation at key regulatory hubs of developmental pathways that regulate trait expression. Importantly, developing this common currency will enable new tools to predict evolutionary responses to climate change from field-collected DNA samples and climate data. A FLF would provide me with the opportunity to deliver on this transformative research agenda, and establish me as a leader in the field of Eco-Devo and climate change biology.

世界的气候正在以前所未有的速度发生变化，对我们依赖生存的生物多样性和生态系统造成了可怕的后果。为了管理这种过渡，我们迫切需要确定哪些物种有危险，什么决定了它们的命运。弹性的一项关键途径是足够快地发展以跟上气候变化。不幸的是，对限制和快速适应潜力的因素知之甚少，因此我们缺乏可行的工具，使我们能够预测哪些物种可以适应哪些物种，以及它们易受伤害的地方。可塑性是个人利用预测性环境线索的能力，以便将形态，行为和生命周期事件与当前或将来的状况（例如在季节之间）进行最佳匹配。它是通过发展级联来完成的，该级联反应将线索转化为连贯的性状变化，通过感应机制，激素信号通路，遗传调节剂和最终下游效应子基因。越来越关注的是，气候变化使线索的可靠性降低，并且改变了性状之间的最佳平衡。在气候变化下，以前自适应的现有塑料反应现在导致环境和表达的特征之间的不匹配，除非种群可以快速发展新的反应，否则它们可能会灭绝。我已经证明了某些人群中没有进化的能力。尽管机械生物学在解开基因组制造多细胞生物的基因网络和发育途径方面取得了长足的进步，但环境的作用通常被忽略为噪声。更糟糕的是，大多数研究都是在人工实验室环境中进行的，远离现实世界的复杂性，在现实世界中，塑料反应发展以及它们可能有助于气候弹性的地方。另一方面，引导物种脆弱性评估的气候变化弹性的预测模型具有有限的解释能力，因为它们忽略了重要的生物学机制，例如表型可塑性，适应性和遗传学。由于缺乏高质量的经验数据和分析方法来整合不同类型的数据，因此快速适应尤其不足。令人兴奋的是，DNA测序，遗传学和统计数据中的新分析方法现在有望连接以前不同的领域。我的多学科研究使我处于利用这些新技术发展的独特地位，并将适应能力作为机械和保护生物学之间的共同货币。具体而言，是调节性状表达的发育途径的关键调节中心的遗传变异。重要的是，开发这种通用货币将使新工具能够预测从现场收集的DNA样本和气候数据中对气候变化的进化反应。 FLF将为我提供提供这项变革性研究议程的机会，并确立我在生态范围和气候变化生物学领域的领导者。