Graduation Semester and Year
2019
Language
English
Document Type
Dissertation
Degree Name
Doctor of Philosophy in Quantitative Biology
Department
Biology
First Advisor
Matthew R Walsh
Abstract
Preserving the health of ecosystems on Earth rewards local communities with economic benefits and improved quality of life. Yet, humans often perform activities that disrupt natural systems and lead to declines in biodiversity and ecosystem services. As a result, scientists face increasing pressure to predict ecological changes under different scenarios of anthropogenic inputs. One factor that is typically omitted from current forecasts is the potential for ongoing evolution in populations and resulting impacts on ecology (i.e. eco-evolutionary dynamics). Here, I present a collection of studies that test for an influence of eco-evolutionary dynamics on different aspects of global change and evaluate how phenotypic plasticity mediates interactions between ecology and evolution. Using a combination of laboratory and field-based methods, I show that eco-evolutionary feedbacks can be important for understanding and predicting patterns of global change and, further, that the expression of phenotypic plasticity may influence the nature and tempo of eco-evolutionary dynamics. I conclude by suggesting ways of incorporating this information into ecological forecasts and identifying directions for future research.
Keywords
Daphnia, Eco-evolutionary dynamics, Harmful algal blooms, Invasive species, Phenotypic plasticity
Disciplines
Biology | Life Sciences
License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-Share Alike 4.0 International License.
Recommended Citation
Gillis, Michael K., "Toughing it out: understanding the interplay of phenotypic plasticity and evolution in stressful environments" (2019). Biology Dissertations. 183.
https://mavmatrix.uta.edu/biology_dissertations/183
Comments
Degree granted by The University of Texas at Arlington