Description: Das Projekt "Evolutionary Conflicts and their Impact on Speciation" wird vom Umweltbundesamt gefördert und von Eidgenössische Technische Hochschule Zürich, Institut für Integrative Biologie durchgeführt. Within the general framework of evolutionary theory, I am particularly interested in sexual selection and evolutionary conflicts within and between species (sexual and host-parasite conflicts) as potential drivers of speciation. Reproductive barriers between populations are of crucial importance as they can help explain how new species are formed and what factors encourage or constrain biodiversity. Reproductive traits are known to be susceptible to very rapid evolutionary change yet the exact traits responsible for reproductive isolation generally remain unclear. I aim to identify such traits and understand how they diverge and affect reproductive barriers between populations in Tribolium flour beetles (important pests of stored products and genetically tractable model organisms). I will mainly use a powerful long-term 'experimental evolution' approach to examine whether sexual selection generates greater differences in reproductive traits and accelerates reproductive isolation. To do this, I will be using different populations maintained under different levels of sexual selection (through variation in the intensity of competition between males to produce offspring). In addition to detailed experimental studies of a range of reproductive characters and the impact of endosymbionts on host reproduction, I will run a combined experimental evolution experiment incorporating different levels of sexual selection and status of infection (infected vs. uninfected). This will enable me to judge how both sexual selection and reproductive parasites (such as the bacterial endosymbiont Wolbachia) impact on speciation. Despite strong theoretical support, the importance of sexual selection and evolutionary conflicts as speciation engines remains controversial and hence generates intense debate. This research aims to establish whether these forces can act singly or combined to accelerate speciation (and ultimately generate biodiversity) and their overall and relative importance as engines of speciation. This will be of particular interest to scientists working in the fields of evolutionary biology and behavioural ecology, but also to ecologists, reproductive biologists, and conservation biologists. Because Tribolium beetles are agricultural pests of considerable economic importance, results will also be relevant to more applied researchers. Moreover, as endosymbionts could have potential applications as biocontrol agents for pests or insect vectors of disease, it is critical that detailed knowledge of consequences for the host of infection with the symbiont is available.
Types:
SupportProgram
Origin: /Bund/UBA/UFORDAT
Tags: Käfer ? Insekt ? Zürich ? Ökologie ? Sexuelle Fortpflanzung ? Agrarschädling ? Evolution ? Parasit ? Studie ? Schadorganismus ? Infektion ? Krankheit ? Biodiversität ? Tribolium ? divergence ? host ? reproductive isolation ? sexual conflict ? sexual selection ? speciation ? symbiont ? wolbachia ?
License: cc-by-nc-nd/4.0
Language: Deutsch
Time ranges: 2008-10-01 - 2011-09-30
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