Predicting contemporary evolution and population persistence in a changing environment

Informations

Funding country

France

Acronym

ContempEvol

URL

-

Start date

10/16/2011

End date

-

Budget

261,021 EUR

Fundings

Abstract

While evolutionary biology has long been mainly a retrospective science, the advent of contemporary evolution studies where changes in populations are followed in real time (either in the lab or in the wild) opens a new window for a more prospective approach. Indeed this type of studies focuses directly on the dynamical processes of population responses to changing environments, rather than simply on their static consequences. On the one hand, this enables a more direct comparison of models with data, and a better assessment of their predictive capacities. On the other hand, it leads to a reevaluation of the importance of previously neglected biological mechanisms, such as the direct response of individuals to their environment of development through phenotypic plasticity, or the interactions between evolution and demography. This project aims at generating new theoretical predictions that can be tested using contemporary evolution data, and measuring in the laboratory biological parameters that are essential for predicting evolutionary and demographic responses to environmental change. The project has three main objectives, starting from the most fundamental mechanisms of response to changing environments, towards more realistic situations of contemporary evolution. First we will study how natural selection on the phenotype changes with the environment, and how this translates into a genetic response. We will focus in particular on genetic correlations between traits, which can slow down evolution and thereby increase extinction risk. Second we will investigate the evolution of plasticity, with a particular interest for correlated plasticity of multiple characters, and age-dependent patterns of plasticity, two phenomena that are widespread in nature but have been little studied theoretically and empirically. Thirdly, we will address specific situations of contemporary evolution, where the growth of populations depends on their evolution: biological invasions, and population persistence in the face of global change. The theoretical side of the project will rely on mathematical and computer modelling of processes, which is the domain of expertise of the project coordinator (L-M Chevin). The experiments will be mostly carried out by a PhD student, who will use the brine shrimp Artemia as a biological model. This organism inhabits hypersaline continental environments. It has a simple ecological niche that can be easily manipulated in the laboratory by varying salinity and temperature. A post-doctoral researcher will also be hired to study experimental evolution of the bacteria Escherichia coli facing pH stress. The combination of theoretical result and their experimental validation with different organisms will shed a new light on experimental evolution data, and will allow testing more rigorously the predictions of models of evolution in response to environmental change. Beyond a better understanding of the underlying biological processes, the objective of this project is also to quantitatively assess the ability of evolutionary biology to produce accurate predictions. This capacity is the prerequisite to any application of this fundamental scientific field to questions of practical concern, such as the management of antibiotics resistance, or the maintenance of biodiversity in the face of global change.