Dissertatioin Research: The Effect of Artificial Selection on the Evolution of Ontogenetic Trajectories

Washington State University, Pullman WA

Investigators

Abstract

0105079 Carter Evolution can occur through several different processes. One process that has important implications for the evolution of many traits, including those related to aging, is the correlated response of a trait at one age to selection on that same trait at a different age. More specifically, how a trait measured at many different ages (also called an ontogenetic trajectory) responds to selection at one specific age is poorly understood. In this study, lines of laboratory mice selected for voluntary activity and unselected control lines will be used to examine the influence of early-age selection on a trait's ontogenetic trajectory. In both populations, the ontogenetic trajectories of one morphological and two behavioral traits will be described, changes in the patterns of genetic variance and covariance of all three traits across all ages measured, and patterns of genetic variance and covariance partitioned to determine how genetic variation contributes to each trajectory. These results will provide predictions about the effects of future selection on each ontogenetic trajectory, identify genetic tradeoffs during aging, and determine the effect of selection on the genetic variation underlying each trait. This information is important to the further development of evolutionary theory, and to gaining a better understanding of the genetics and evolution of aging.