Examining mechanistic pathways driving the adaptive capacity of Arctic birds to respond to environmental change

检查驱动北极鸟类应对环境变化的适应能力的机制途径

• 批准号: RGPIN-2020-05507
• 负责人: Love, Oliver
• 金额: $ 4.01万
• 依托单位: University of Windsor
• 依托单位国家: 加拿大
• 项目类别: Discovery Grants Program - Individual
• 财政年份: 2022
• 资助国家: 加拿大
• 起止时间: 2022-01-01 至 2023-12-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nserc-crsng.gc.ca/ase-oro/Details-Detailles_eng.asp?id=744782
• 关键词: Examining; mechanistic; pathways; driving; adaptive

It is largely unclear whether organisms possess the adaptive capacity to respond to current rates of rapid environmental change (REC). My lab studies the adaptive capacity of underlying state-mediated mechanisms to enable organisms to respond to rapid environmental change (REC). We focus on three progressively integrated questions to test this paradigm in a diversity of systems facing REC (i.e., Arctic): i) how does environmental variation shape transcriptional, physiological and behavioural flexibility to maintain individual state?; ii) how do these flexible responses translate into optimal breeding decisions that maximize fitness?; and iii) how does the degree of intra and inter-individual level flexibility influence population resiliency in a changing world? More specifically, we field-test the global hypothesis that flexibility in a state-based regulatory mechanism - baseline corticosterone - bCORT - plays a key adaptive role in mediating how environmental variation influences individual state to optimize breeding decisions and maximize fitness. Relying on a highly integrative framework, we combine physiology, behaviour and transcriptomics to assess how flexibility in bCORT generates individual- and species-specific adaptive responses. Working in the Canadian Arctic is highly strategic given our framework since this ecosystem is changing faster than any on earth. Working with three avian models that span the pace-of-life continuum, we couple long-term, multi-year datasets with sophisticated and highly integrative experimental approaches to empirically field-test predictions of individually-based, state-dependent models. As such, our research pushes the forefront of science with a complex Individual x Environment x Life History (I x E x LH) framework to test adaptive responses to REC. Collectively, we are challenging integrative ecologists to increase the mechanistic complexity of how we all field-test the basis for variation in investment and fitness in free-living species. From an evolutionary perspective, we use this approach to uncover the mechanistic underpinnings of life-history variation that have largely eluded evolutionary ecologists for decades. From an applied perspective, we increasingly rely on these quantified linkages to predict when and how environmental change will shift individuals into maladaptive scenarios that negatively impact population growth. Overall, appreciating mechanistic complexity has numerous tangible advantages for furthering the theory that enables us to interpret how change impacts fitness. With the rapid increase in the multiple environmental stressors facing Arctic wildlife, this predictive yet flexible approach is more vital than ever for assessing whether organisms within rapidly changing Arctic ecosystems have the adaptive capacity to persist.

目前尚不清楚生物是否具有应对当前快速环境变化速率（REC）的适应能力。我的实验室研究了潜在的状态介导的机制能够使生物能够应对快速环境变化（REC）的适应能力。我们专注于三个逐步整合的问题，以测试该范式在面临的多种系统（即北极）中：i）环境变化如何形成转录，生理和行为灵活性以维持个体状态？ ii）这些灵活的反应如何转化为最大程度地提高健身的最佳育种决策？ iii）内部和个体间的灵活性的程度如何影响不断变化的世界中的人口弹性？更具体地说，我们对全球假设进行了测试：基于州的调节机制的灵活性 - 基线皮质酮-Bcort-在介导环境变化如何影响个体状态以优化育种决策和最大化适应性时起着关键的适应性作用。依靠高度综合的框架，我们结合了生理，行为和转录组学，以评估BCORT中的灵活性如何产生个体和物种特异性的适应性反应。鉴于我们的框架，在加拿大北极工作是高度战略性的，因为该生态系统的变化速度比地球上的任何人都快。我们使用跨越寿命连续体的三种鸟类模型，我们将长期的多年数据集与复杂且高度整合的实验方法进行了经验上基于状态，依赖状态依赖性模型的经验性现场测试预测。因此，我们的研究通过复杂的单个X环境X Life History（I X E X LH）框架​​来测试对REC的自适应响应，从而推动了科学的最前沿。总体而言，我们挑战了综合生态学家，以提高我们所有人如何对自由生活物种投资和适应性变化的基础的机械复杂性。从进化的角度来看，我们使用这种方法来揭示生命历史变化的机械基础，这些差异在很大程度上避开了进化生态学家数十年。从应用的角度来看，我们越来越依靠这些量化的联系来预测何时以及如何将个人转移到不良适应性的情况下，从而对人口的增长产生负面影响。总体而言，欣赏机械复杂性具有许多切实的优势，可以使我们能够解释变化如何影响健身。随着北极野生动植物面临的多种环境压力源的迅速增加，这种预测而灵活的方法对于评估迅速变化的北极生态系统中的生物是否具有持久的适应性能力，这比以往任何时候都至关重要。