2019 Fiscal Year Annual Research Report
Evolutionary and ecological drivers of the spatial distribution of different reproductive strategies
| Project/Area Number |
18F18806
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| Research Institution | Tokyo Metropolitan University |
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Principal Investigator |
クロニン アダム 首都大学東京, 理学研究科, 准教授 (30620489)
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| Co-Investigator(Kenkyū-buntansha) |
PLANAS SITJA ISAAC 首都大学東京, 理学(系)研究科(研究院), 外国人特別研究員
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| Project Period (FY) |
2018-11-09 – 2021-03-31
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| Keywords | Reproductive strategies / agent-based model / simulations / Formicidae / ants / competition-colonisation trade-off |
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| Outline of Annual Research Achievements |
Isaac has run the simulations in several environments differing in patchiness, resource availability and initial dispersal strategies, bringing new interesting data and accomplishing the first steps of this project. The results of the model has been presented in several international conferences and are now being integrated in the first publication in collaboration with researchers at Sorbonne University, Paris. The next stages involve the integration of climatic variables on the model, that will affect the growth and reproduction rate of the colonies and compare the patterns generated to the empirical geographical distribution and population genetics of M. nipponica in Japan.
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| Current Status of Research Progress |
Current Status of Research Progress
2: Research has progressed on the whole more than it was originally planned.
Reason
Model development progressed swiftly thanks to Skype meetings with collaborators Loeuille and Monnin, and a second visit to Paris in August 2019. This was combined with an intensive testing phase to solve code bugs and optimize the computational process. The model now can be used to test differences on landscape, colonization-competition trade-off, dispersal-mortality trade-off and type of selection. The model allows tracking evolution of strategies over time. This phase has not been without problems including network access issues at TMU. These issues slowed progress considerably. Nevertheless, he has now acquire the final data for the first publication (in prep.). In addition, Isaac started the development of a mathematical model which will be the core of a 2nd manuscript. This mathematical model, which is a modification of the Hasting-Tilman model, will allow to predict the global dynamics and possible co-existence of N strategies in a given habitat depending on the evolutionary rate and colonization-competition trade-off of the species and the resource quality/distribution. Isaac also went in a field trip to collect M. nipponica in Gifu (July 2019), extracted DNA from M. nipponica male samples (previously collected by Dr. Cronin) and sent them to a sequencing facility to obtain the genome. Finally, his early stages results were presented in 2 national conferences in Europe.
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| Strategy for Future Research Activity |
A trip to Paris is planned during summer 2020 in order to complete the final modifications of the two manuscript in progress and finalize the 2nd phase of the project: integrate climatic variables into the model. From empirical data, we know that climatic variables can affect the performance of ant colonies and we hypothesize that could also affect the evolution of dispersal strategies. Therefore, the integration of climatic variables in the model will allow to test this hypothesis and the relative evolutionary importance of each climatic variable. A 2nd field trip is scheduled to obtain new colonies from Hokkaido. The genome obtained is now being analysed and will be useful to perform population genetics studies, which would be used to validate the hypotheses of the model in the future.
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